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Health Care — COVID funding request hits pushback from GOP senator
Hold up. We’re getting a new Beyoncé album next month, and we already know what it’s going to be called: “Rennaissance.”
Today in health care, top GOP Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.) on Thursday vowed to block more COVID-19 funding unless further justification was provided by administration officials.
Welcome to Overnight Health Care, where we’re following the latest moves on policy and news affecting your health. For The Hill, we’re Peter Sullivan, Nathaniel Weixel and Joseph Choi. Subscribe here.
GOP senator knocks calls for more COVID funding
The outlook for COVID-19 funding is not looking too good.
A top Republican senator on Thursday pushed back hard against calls from Biden administration health officials for more funding to fight COVID-19, saying that he will be a “roadblock” until the officials provide sufficient justification that the money is needed.
The comments from Sen. Richard Burr (N.C.), the top Republican on the Senate Health Committee, illustrate how hard it will be for the Biden administration’s COVID-19 funding request to get through Congress, despite health officials’ dire warnings that the money is needed to have enough updated vaccines for all Americans this fall, among other things.
“I’ll continue to be a roadblock for those who believe that we can blindly just appropriate emergency money, borrow it from the Chinese, and spend it on something that none of us have a clue as to what the plan is,” Burr said during a hearing in front of the Senate Health Committee.
Dire warnings about lack of funds: Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf said people could die unnecessarily without new funding if they cannot get access to updated vaccines and treatments.
- “To me the most important thing that will happen is people will die or be hospitalized or experience long COVID for days to months to maybe a lifetime unnecessarily if they don’t have access to the latest vaccines and antivirals,” Califf said.
- The White House pushed back on Burr’s contention that it had not provided a plan for the spending, pointing to a 97-page document that it released in March.
DeSantis: No state funds for kids’ COVID vaccine
Florida will not dedicate any state resources to vaccinating young children against COVID-19, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) said Thursday.
Responding to a question following a press conference about an annual python hunt in the Everglades, DeSantis said infants and toddlers “are at practically zero risk of anything with COVID,” so the state will recommend against getting those kids vaccinated.
“There is not going to be any state programs that are going to be trying to get COVID jabs to infants and toddlers, and newborns,” DeSantis said to applause from the crowd on hand. “That’s not something that we think is appropriate and so that’s not where we are going to be utilizing our resources.”
- At least 442 children under 5 have died due to COVID-19 through the end of May, exceeding the number or deaths typically seen from flu or other vaccine-preventable illnesses, per federal figures.
Not banned, but: The governor’s comments come a day after the state confirmed it will not be pre-ordering any vaccines for providers.
If parents want to give their kids the shots, DeSantis said they will be able to, but he didn’t say when they might be available.
- The White House initially made 10 million vaccines for young children available for states, tribes and other jurisdictions to pre-order in anticipation of authorization.
- Providers will still be able to order the vaccines themselves, either directly through federal partnerships or from the state. But it’s not clear how long parents may have to wait.
WEATHER DELAYS REOPENING OF BABY FORMULA PLANT
Abbott Nutrition has halted production at its troubled manufacturing plant in Sturgis, Mich. because of flooding caused by severe weather.
The company on Wednesday announced that it had to cease making EleCare and other specialty metabolic formulas as a result of the damage.
- Abbott restarted production at the plant just two weeks ago after a months-long closure due to a possible link between harmful bacteria and the products produced at its facility.
- The shutdown and subsequent recall helped trigger the baby formula availability crisis. The new damage will likely delay the production of new products there for at least a few weeks, the company said.
- High winds, hail, power outages and flooding impacted the plant, and the company will need to conduct repairs and sanitation tests before reopening safely to continue formula production.
The company entered a consent decree with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last month, saying no definitive link between the detected bacterial infections and its products had been found.
FDA Commissioner Robert Califf tweeted Wednesday night that weather events are unfortunate, but there is more than enough formula to meet demand.
26 DEMS WANT TO EXPAND VACCINE COOPERATION WITH CUBA
A group of House Democrats is urging the Biden administration to further soften sanctions against Cuba to aid distribution of the Caribbean nation’s COVID-19 vaccines worldwide.
In a letter led by Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) and Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), the lawmakers praised President Biden’s loosening of travel and remittance restrictions to the island, while asking for bilateral cooperation on public health.
“As an initial step, we ask that you review U.S. policy towards Cuba in order to facilitate greater global vaccine equity, with a particular focus on ensuring that U.S. sanctions do not impede current or future efforts by Cuba to share COVID-19 vaccines and related technology and medical support with low-income countries around the world,” they wrote.
The Democrats’ appeal is certain to anger proponents of a harsher Cuba policy on either side of the aisle.
But the Biden administration has shown willingness to slowly reconsider restrictions imposed on the communist island by the Trump administration, particularly on policy areas with humanitarian ramifications.
How America is preparing for a post-Roe reality
Americans are awaiting Supreme Court action on a case that could overturn Roe v. Wade, a decision that will decide the fate of abortion rights in states across the country.
The high court’s official decision will follow a draft opinion leaked in April to Politico that suggested the court would overturn Roe v. Wade.
A decision to overturn Roe v. Wade would punt the issue of abortion rights back to the states, which has abortion rights activists on high alert. Thirteen states have trigger laws that would go into effect if Roe is overturned.
In some cases, state laws include tight restrictions on abortions that do not include exceptions for rape or incest. In liberal-leaning states, officials have moved to protect the procedure by codifying the right to abortion into their state laws.
Follow the link below to see reporters from The Hill discuss the implications of the potential overturning of Roe.
WHAT WE’RE READING
- Senate passes historic bill to help veterans exposed to burn pits during military service (CNN)
- 100 million people in America are saddled with health care debt (Kaiser Health News)
- Facebook is receiving sensitive medical information from hospital websites (Stat)
STATE BY STATE
- Low levels of testing may be hiding a COVID wave in Texas: Experts (ABC)
- Georgia COVID-19 cases up 20% in the last week (Tribune Ledger News)
- Florida hospitals, physicians scramble as DeSantis opts out of vaccine order for young kids (The Gainesville Sun)
OP-EDS IN THE HILL
- Healing Uvalde requires cultural competence and congressional action
- Let’s dismantle the obstacles to treating migraine disease
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Health Care page for the latest news and coverage. See you tomorrow.
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Lawmakers call for NFL commissioner to release investigation into Commanders
A group of six House Democrats from the Washington, D.C., metro area sent a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell on Thursday, asking him to release the results of an investigation into the Washington Commanders’ workplace culture.
The letter comes one day after an NFL spokesperson confirmed that Goodell plans to testify before the House Oversight and Reform Committee next week as it investigates allegations of workplace misconduct against Commanders team owner Dan Snyder. The representatives said the “toxic” work environment within the organization primarily impacted their constituents, who they said deserve transparency from the league on the review.
The Commanders hired a third-party attorney to investigate claims of sexual harassment and verbal abuse described in media coverage in July 2020, the letter states.
The investigation found that the team’s cheerleaders were secretly recorded in compromising positions and that female employees faced unwanted sexual advances from other employees. The NFL fined the team, called the Washington Football Team at the time, $10 million for what the league called a “highly unprofessional” environment after the investigation concluded a year later.
But according to the letter, the NFL did not request that the lawyer provide a written report and has refused to release the investigation’s findings because of the “sensitivity of the allegations.”
The House Oversight Committee held a roundtable in February with six former Commanders employees, during which they shared their experiences in the workplace environment and what the lawmakers in their letter called the “failure” of the Commanders and the NFL to address the alleged abuse they faced.
“It is clear from their portrayals, that the pervasive workplace misconduct has left sizable impacts on those who suffered from it over the last several years,” the letter states. “Additionally, there are other employees who have yet to detail their experiences, due to non-disclosure agreements preventing them from speaking out against the Commanders’ toxic work environment.”
The signers wrote that their constituents deserve to know the findings of the report so the Commanders and Snyder are held accountable for what happened.
The Commanders and NFL launched a separate investigation into Snyder in February after a former cheerleader and marketing manager for the team accused him of sexual harassment. Snyder has denied the allegations.
The team owner declined an invitation Wednesday to testify before the committee, which the signers said they were “extremely disappointed” about.
The committee urged the NFL and the Commanders to release the report ahead of the hearing next week.
The letter was signed by Democratic Reps. Don Beyer (Va.), Gerry Connolly (Va.), Anthony Brown (Md.), Jennifer Wexton (Va.), Jamie Raskin (Md.) and Del. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D.C.).
Goodell did not immediately return a request for comment through a spokesperson from The Hill.
The committee also sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission in April, presenting evidence that the Commanders and Snyder had engaged in financial misconduct. Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares (R) and D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine (D) subsequently initiated separate investigations into the allegations as a result.
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Defense & National Security — Senators eye $45B defense budget boost
The Senate Armed Services Committee voted to pass its version of the fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), proposing to boost defense spending by roughly $45 billion over what President Biden requested.
We’ll have more details on the bill, plus the Senate’s recent vote on a bill to expand benefits for veterans suffering health effects from toxic exposure, as well as a newly reported details on a call between Biden and top officials over rhetoric on Ukraine.
This is Defense & National Security, your nightly guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond. For The Hill, I’m Ellen Mitchell. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here.
Senators considering $45B boost to defense budget
The Senate Armed Services Committee voted 23-3 to pass its version of its fiscal 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), proposing to boost defense spending by roughly $45 billion over what President Biden requested.
- The measure allocates $857.64 billion in fiscal 2023 for national defense, according to a summary of the bill released by the committee. For comparison, the president proposed $813 billion in national defense spending when he unveiled his budget proposal in late March.
- Of the bill’s top line, $817.33 billion would go the Pentagon alone, while $29.6 billion would go toward the Department of Energy. A separate $10.6 billion would go toward other defense-related activities outside of the legislation’s jurisdiction.
The bill now heads to the Senate floor, where the full upper chamber will consider the legislation.
Well above: The top lines are well above the $802.4 billion that the House Armed Services Committee is poised to consider when it reviews its version of the NDAA next Wednesday.
- The House bill’s top line would give the Pentagon $772.5 billion, the Department of Energy $29.5 billion and another $400 million for other defense-related activities outside of the Department of Defense.
- It doesn’t include an additional $11 billion in national defense spending outside of the committee’s jurisdiction.
Soon to come: Once the House passes its bill, both versions will then be reconciled during the conference committee process into one bill that the House and Senate will have to pass.
Even then, the NDAA is a policy bill that sets funding levels and guides policy, but it does not hold budget power. Therefore, an appropriations bill will still need to be passed.
Addressing inflation: In a summary of the Senate bill, the committee says it approved the $45 billion boost to “address the effects of inflation and accelerate the implementation of the National Defense Strategy.”
Inflation quickly emerged as a key debate point when Biden released his proposal for national defense spending earlier this year. Republicans have demanded that Biden increase defense spending for fiscal 2023 by 3 to 5 percent above inflation.
Other aid: The top line also provides additional security assistance to Ukraine, allows for accelerated production of certain munitions, and more funding for additional military construction projects and facilities maintenance.
Senate passes bill for veterans exposed to toxins
The Senate on Thursday voted 84-14 to pass legislation expanding benefits for veterans suffering health effects from toxic exposures during their military service.
- The Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson Honoring Our PACT Act of 2022, among other things, expands the Department of Veterans Affairs’ health care eligibility to veterans who served after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
- The measure now heads back to the House, where it passed by a vote of
256-174 in March, with 34 Republicans joining Democrats to advance the measure. Thursday’s legislation includes several changes from the House version. - Sens. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) and Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) — the top members on the Senate Veterans Affairs’ Committee — unveiled the bipartisan legislation in mid-May after a year of negotiations.
The bill is named for Sgt. 1st Class Heath Robinson, who deployed to Iraq and Kosovo with the Ohio National Guard. He died in 2020 of cancer that he developed as a result to exposure to burn pits during his deployment.
Some background: Servicemembers have been exposed to toxins throughout history, though Thursday’s legislation is largely aimed at helping veterans who were exposed to burn pits in the post-9/11 era.
- Burn pits were open areas of land used for combustion of trash and other waste like chemicals, human waste, munitions and food waste.
- Exposures to the resulting chemicals has been found to cause health issues ranging from asthma, autoimmune disorders and lung cancers, some of which can take years after exposure to develop.
‘Too damn long’: In remarks on the Senate floor, Tester said that passing the bill was “righting a wrong that has been ignored for just way too damn long.”
“Generations after generations of Americans have gone to war, backed by a promise that we made to them when they signed up that we would care for them when they got home,” Tester said.
“Unfortunately, that didn’t happen in the case of toxic exposure. We failed them,” he added.
What the bill also does: In addition to expanding VA care eligibility to post-9/11 veterans, the bill creates a framework for the VA to establish presumptive service connections related to toxic exposures. It also adds 23 burn pit and toxic exposure-related conditions to the agency’s list of presumptive service connections.
The legislation also expands presumptions related to Agent Orange — used largely during the Vietnam War — to veterans who served in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and Guam, among other places.
Biden told officials to tone down Ukraine remarks
President Biden told Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken in April to tone down their rhetoric in supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia, NBC News reported Thursday.
- The pushback reportedly came after the Pentagon chief said the Biden administration wanted Ukraine to win the war against the Kremlin and that the U.S. wanted a weakened Russia that could not launch another attack. Blinken then publicly aligned himself with Austin’s comments, sparking a flurry of news reports.
- “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said at the time after the Cabinet members visited Kyiv.
Not pleased: During a later conference call, Biden told the two officials he thought their remarks went too far and to tone them down, multiple current and former administration officials familiar with the call told NBC.
One unidentified official told the network that Biden was concerned that Austin’s words could set unrealistic goals and up the chance Washington could get pulled into a direct conflict with Moscow.
“Biden was not happy when Blinken and Austin talked about winning in Ukraine,” one of the sources said. “He was not happy with the rhetoric.”
- After a mismanaged and chaotic attack on Ukraine beginning on Feb. 24, Russia in mid-April consolidated its forces for an attack on the country’s eastern Donbas region.
- The fight has been bloody and is expected to turn into a protracted war, with President Volodymyr Zelensky pleading for more weapons to beat back the invasion and staying firm that no Ukrainian territory be ceded to Russia.
Concerns: But U.S. officials are growing more worried that Ukraine’s views are untenable, saying behind the scenes the Ukrainian president should shift his public position and “dial it back a little bit,” one of seven current U.S. officials, former U.S. officials and European officials told NBC.
Experts and U.S. and European officials have voiced a belief that Russian President Vladimir Putin will attempt to claim the Donbas and declare it as Russian territory, with Zelensky then having to negotiate for peace to end the conflict.
No pressure: The Biden administration, meanwhile, has maintained that it will not pressure Kyiv to end the war on any specific terms and is preparing for a long war.
“From the beginning, I’ve said and I’ve been — not everyone has agreed with me — nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine. It’s their territory. I’m not going to tell them what they should and shouldn’t do,” Biden said on June 3. “But it appears to me that, at some point along the line, there’s going to have to be a negotiated settlement here. And what that entails, I don’t know.”
WHAT WE’RE READING
- Senior Islamic State leader captured in U.S. military raid in Syria
- DOJ: Jan. 6 committee’s refusal to share transcripts ‘complicates’ investigation
- Baryshnikov: Putin ‘trying to create a new history of Russia’
- UN records over 10K civilian causalities in Ukraine
- GOP to DOJ: Investigate vandalism at anti-abortion centers as domestic terrorism
- House subcommittee approves $334 million funding bump for CISA
That’s it for today. Check out The Hill’s Defense and National Security pages for the latest coverage. See you tomorrow!
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Five takeaways: Jan. 6 panel bears down on Pence pressure campaign
The House select committee investigating last year’s attack on the U.S. Capitol staged its third public hearing on Thursday, advancing its case that former President Trump had tapped the powers of the White House to orchestrate an attempted coup.
The effort was unsuccessful, in the panel’s telling, only because Trump’s weeks-long campaign to recruit other White House figures failed to convince his own vice president, Mike Pence, to get on board. Pence, ignoring Trump’s entreaties, refused to reject the state electoral votes that formalized Trump’s defeat — a defiance that saved the country from “a revolution within a constitutional crisis,” according to a conservative judge who testified Thursday.
To make their case, the select committee leaned heavily on Pence’s own words — “Trump is wrong; I had no right to overturn the election,” he said in February — and the in-person testimony of two former Pence advisors: Former federal judge J. Michael Luttig, and Greg Jacob, Pence’s former top lawyer.
Here are five takeaways from Thursday’s public hearing.
Lionizing Mike Pence
The ultra-conservative Pence is no darling of Democrats on Capitol Hill, where Pence was a member of the House for a dozen years before jumping to state politics and then the White House.
But the select committee on Thursday portrayed Pence as a heroic figure: a vice president brave enough to buck his party’s own standard-bearer and put his responsibility to the country above his loyalty to Trump.
“Thanks in part to Mike Pence, our democracy withstood Donald Trump’s scheme and the violence of January 6th,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the chairman of the panel.
It’s an unusual alliance, and one with risks for both Pence and the Democrats hailing his heroics.
It’s no mystery that Pence has designs on a White House run in 2024, and boosting his reputation as the country’s savior could hurt Democrats in the presidential contest.
But Pence’s prominence in the Jan. 6 investigation could also damage his own standing in the GOP, where Trump remains the single most popular figure nationwide, and the decision to cross the former president can spell the end of a political career.
In the near term, however, committee members of both parties are happy to have his help — even indirectly — in making their case against Trump.
“Vice President Pence understood that his oath of office was more important than his loyalty to Donald Trump,” said Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.), vice chairwoman of the committee.
“Vice President Pence did the right thing that day,” echoed Rep. Peter Aguilar (D-Calif.). “He stayed true to his oath to protect and defend the Constitution.”
No legal basis for Trump scheme
While Pence was praised for his valor, the committee painted Trump campaign attorney John Eastman as a villain.
Eastman suggested two different tracks for Trump to unwind the election — both revolving around Pence bucking his ceremonial duties to certify the election results.
The committee dedicated significant energy into showing just how widely rejected those theories were.
“There is almost no idea more un-American than the notion that any one person would choose the American president,” Greg Jacob, who was Pence’s top lawyer in the White House, told the committee.
“There was no way our framers, who abhor concentrated power, who had broken away from the tyranny of George III, would ever have put one person, particularly not a person who has a direct interest in the outcome because they were on the ticket of the election, to have a role, to have decisive impact on the outcome,” he said.
J. Michael Luttig, a conservative legal leader and former 4th Circuit Appeal Court judge who advised Pence leading up to Jan. 6, was also critical of Eastman, who once clerked for the judge.
“There was no basis in the Constitution or laws of the United States at all for the theory espoused by Mr. Eastman at all. None,” Luttig said.
Even some on the campaign were wary of Eastman’s legal advice.
Jason Miller, a former senior adviser to the Trump campaign, told the committee in testimony aired Thursday that campaign lawyers Justin Clark and Matt Morgan thought Eastman “was crazy” and said as much to “anyone who would listen.”
Lawyers warned of violence in the streets
The danger of Eastman’s plan was as apparent as the illegality to the White House lawyers who had summarily rejected the concept.
“I said, ‘Are you out of your effing mind, right?’ And I was pretty blunt. I said, ‘You’re completely crazy.’ I said, ‘You’re going to turn around and tell 78-plus million people in this country that your theory is this is how you’re going to invalidate their votes, because you think the election was stolen?’” White House lawyer Eric Herschmann said.
“And I said they’re not going to tolerate that; I said you’re going to cause riots in the streets.”
Jacob also got into a heated exchange with Eastman, who did not believe the courts would see fit to weigh in on the political questions his legal advice would raise.
“I told him, If the courts did not step in, there was no one else to resolve it,” he said. “That might well be resolved through violence in the streets.”
Luttig also saw the potential for danger.
“Had the vice president of the United States obeyed the President of the United States, America would immediately have been plunged into what would have been tantamount to a revolution within a paralyzing constitutional crisis,” Luttig said of Eastman’s plan.
Eastman knew theory was faulty
Jacob sought to get Eastman to drop the strategy by pointing to how he wouldn’t approve of former Vice President Al Gore having rejected the election results in 2000.
“You would not want Kamala Harris to be able to exercise that kind of authority in 2024, when I hope Republicans will win the election. And I know you hope that too, John,” Jacob said.
“And he said, ‘Absolutely. Al Gore did not have a basis to do it in 2000, Kamala Harris shouldn’t be able to do it in 2024, but I think you should do it today.’”
Even on Jan. 6, Eastman was pleading with Jacob to get Pence to reject the vote though “one more relatively minor violation.”
“So now that the precedent has been set that the Electoral Count Act is not quite so sacrosanct as was previously claimed, I implore you to consider one more relatively minor violation and adjourn for ten days to allow the legislatures to finish their investigations,” Eastman wrote in an email that day.
The committee also revealed that Eastman had at one point rejected much of his own legal arguments, displaying an October memo prepared for Trump that was redlined by the attorney.
“Nowhere does [the Constitution] suggest that the President of the Senate gets to make the determination on his own,” Eastman noted.
But perhaps the biggest revelation offered by the committee was that Eastman asked fellow campaign attorney Rudy Giuliani to “be on the pardon list if that is still in the works.”
Warnings — and plans — for the future
A key goal of the committee is demonstrating not just how close America came to losing its Democratic system that day, but to show voters that it could very well happen again.
That warning was delivered most emphatically by Luttig, who attacked Trump’s ongoing and baseless claims that there is and was widespread voter fraud.
“This false and reckless insistence that the former president won the 2020 presidential election has laid waste to Americans’ confidence in their national elections. More alarming still is that the former president pledges that his reelection will not be ‘stolen’ from him next time around, and his Republican Party allies and supporters obeisantly pledge the same,” Luttig wrote in his opening statement.
Before the committee, he warned that future candidates may “succeed in 2024 where they failed in 2020. I don’t speak those words lightly.”
Thompson, the committee chairman, said those concerns could inform the legislation the committee will recommend following its hearings.
“We will be reviewing the views shared by Judge Luttig and other experts on potential improvements to the Electoral Count Act, among a range of other initiatives,” he said.
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Boebert taking legal action over ‘outlandish’ claims
Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) plans to sue a PAC for defamation after it made a series of wild claims about her without evidence —assertions that quickly spread online.
The source of the claims is the American Muckrakers PAC, a group that was also behind the release of a number of salacious videos of Rep. Madison Cawthorn (R-N.C.) ahead of his May primary defeat.
But while videos released showing Cawthorn were confirmed and verifiable, the PAC’s claims about Boebert are not. Some details have been directly refuted.
“Muckrakers published these outlandish statements knowing they were fabricated but you likely operated under the inaccurate assumption that publishing false statements against a public figure would not create legal liability. This will be a costly miscalculation for Muckrakers, Wheeler and Muckrakers’ donors,” Jonathan Anderson, a lawyer for Boebert, wrote in a Wednesday letter to the president and co-founder of the PAC David Wheeler, which was first reported by Fox News and shared with The Hill.
Boebert told the Washington Examiner that the allegations were “completely false,” “sexist,” and “disgusting.”
“This is very damaging, and that is why I’m going after this guy personally and his group with the full force of the law,” Boebert said. “I am not holding back, and I want to make sure that this never happens to anyone else again.”
Wheeler is standing by the core parts of the claims, saying that he trusts his sources. But he also acknowledged problems with the initial report.
“Some of what we put out was sloppy,” Wheeler told The Hill, but said “that does not undermine the credibility or validity” of what his sources have shared with him about Boebert.
Among the claims made by the PAC are that Boebert worked as a paid escort to wealthy man, and that she had two abortions in 2004 or 2005, and in 2009.
The PAC said it received this information from a “verified source close to this matter,” and provided heavily redacted screenshots of text messages from an unknown source as well as photos of Boebert. No other information was provided to back up the claims.
“Falsely claiming the Congresswoman worked as a prostitute is a disgusting and sexist statement that, as you know, has zero basis in fact,” the letter from Anderson said.
Anderson also said that the timeline of the alleged abortions does not make sense based on the births of her children.
“To be clear, Rep. Boebert was pregnant with her first son in 2004 and 2005 and he was born in 2005, she was pregnant with her third son in 2008 and 2009 and he was born in 2009, and she has never had an abortion,” Anderson said in the letter.
Two of the photos included in the releases are cropped versions of photos posted on Explore Talent, a casting website with social media elements.
Boebert appears to have had an Explore Talent profile, which has since been taken down but is accessible in Wayback Machine archives. The full, uncropped photos have Explore Talent watermarks, and have been previously reproduced elsewhere online.
The third of the photos included by the PAC in its release is not Boebert at all but of Mellissa Carone, a woman who Rudy Guiliani brought to testify at a 2020 election fraud hearing in Michigan. The photo came from Carone’s Explore Talent page, which has also been removed but is viewable in web archives.
The PAC later updated its press release and text message exchange to remove that photo and the dates of alleged abortions.
Boebert’s lawyer also said that there were false details in a separate release by the PAC related to a crash of an off-road vehicle that injured her then-sister-in-law. The ex-sister-in-law spoke to the PAC in a brief phone conversation about the crash and alleged that Boebert was drinking before the crash.
“We have evidence that this statement was published after your own ‘source’ informed you by text message that this story was ‘Totally made up.’ Further, Congresswoman Boebert doesn’t drink alcohol and no alcohol was involved in the actual vehicle accident,” Anderson said in the letter.
The PAC acknowledged getting the date around the crash incorrect in its release. The crash occurred in 2019, not in 2020 just months before Boebert’s first primary, as the release initially falsely put it.
But Wheeler defended his organization’s work and criticized Boebert’s letter.
“The letter is so full of holes that I almost look forward to litigation because they have besmirched me and our organization in a way that’s absolutely defensible, every bit of it,” Wheeler said. “Their assertion that we somehow just go out and willy-nilly throw out facts knowing they’re false is – is ludicrous.”
“We don’t want it to [come to that]. Litigation is never fun for anybody, but you know, there are two sides to every litigation,” Wheeler said. “If they think we’re just going to roll over and not get the opportunity to depose Lauren Boebert, they’re nuts.”
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On The Money — Biden tamps down recession fears as Dow plunges
President Biden is confident in the U.S. economy’s ability to avoid a recession despite a rough week. We’ll also look at another stock market slide, rising mortgage rates and pushback to the White House from the oil industry.
But first, a hush money probe in the WWE.
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.
Biden says recession ‘not inevitable’
President Biden on Thursday said that a recession is not inevitable in the wake of the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise interest rates at the quickest pace in nearly 30 years.
“First of all, it’s not inevitable,” Biden told The Associated Press in an exclusive interview. “Secondly, we’re in a stronger position than any nation in the world to overcome this inflation.”
- The stock market closed with steep losses Thursday following the Fed’s announcement that it would hike its baseline interest rate range by 0.75 percentage points after an alarming May surge in inflation.
“Be confident, because I am confident we’re better positioned than any country in the world to own the second quarter of the 21st century,” Biden told the AP. “That’s not hyperbole, that’s a fact.”
The Hill’s Alex Gangitano has more here.
Read more: 56 percent in new poll believe US is in recession
DOWN BAD
Dow falls below 30k as Fed hikes, housing slowdown spook market
Stocks closed with steep losses Thursday after the Federal Reserve boosted interest rates at the quickest pace since 1994.
- The Dow Jones Industrial Average lost 741 points by the closing bell Thursday, falling 2.4 percent and below 30,000 points for the first time since 2020.
- The S&P 500 index closed with a loss of 3.3 percent and the Nasdaq Composite plunged to a loss of 4.1 percent.
Thursday’s selloff comes after the Fed announced it would hike its baseline interest rate range by 0.75 percentage points, the largest rate hike since 1994, after a surprising May surge in inflation alarmed central bank officials.
Investors also appeared alarmed by new data released Thursday showing a sharp increase in mortgage interest rates and steep decline in new home construction.
Sylvan explains here.
RATES KEEP CLIMBING
Mortgage rates hit 5.78 percent in record spike
Interest payments for the U.S. benchmark 30-year fixed rate mortgage saw the largest one-week upward movement in 35 years, hitting 5.78 percent as of Thursday.
The rate jumped more than half a percentage point in the last week and is nearly double what it was a year ago, according to government-backed mortgage lender Freddie Mac.
- That means a monthly mortgage payment on a roughly median-valued $400,000 home, after a 20 percent down payment, would be $1,874, up more than $500 from last year.
- The spike is expected to cool down the tight housing market temporarily as buyers stay away from sky-high rates.
The Hill’s Tobias Burns has more here.
OIL AND TROUBLE
Exxon Mobil, Chevron push back on Biden blaming industry for oil prices
ExxonMobil and Chevron released statements this week saying the Biden administration could be doing more to address oil prices as the president has gone after the companies for making large profits while gas prices spike.
On Tuesday, President Biden slammed oil executives in a letter saying they had unacceptably high profit margins while regular Americans are suffering and calling on the industry to work with the administration to address increased prices from the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
- Both companies highlighted in statements measures they have taken during this time where Americans are seeing the highest gas prices in years.
- Chevron said it will be increasing Permian Basin production by more than 15 percent this year. ExxonMobil says it has increased refining capacity to process U.S. light crude by around 250,000 barrels a day. After the pandemic, ExxonMobil also stressed it borrowed $30 billion to prepare for the post-pandemic increase in oil demand.
The Hill’s Lexi Lonas has more here.
Good to Know
President Biden on Thursday signed into law a bipartisan bill that aims to reign in the container shipping industry in a bid to ease supply chain challenges at ports and lower costs of goods.
Biden signed the legislation days after it cleared the House in an overwhelmingly bipartisan vote, telling an audience at the White House that the measure would help ease inflation.
Here’s what else we have our eye on:
- Monthly car payments hit a new record high in May, averaging $712, according to a new report from Cox Automotive & Moody’s Analytics.
- Total U.S. home equity reached a record high of $27.8 trillion, according to the Federal Reserve.
That’s it for today. Thanks for reading and check out The Hill’s Finance page for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.
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Time for a healing
Our country is wailing.
Once again, innocent children are dying at the hands of school shooters, shattering families and communities. A white supremacist guns down Black shoppers at a supermarket, spouting hateful theories that are echoed in the rhetoric of politicians. Two years into a pandemic that has caused higher rates of death among poor counties, we have not seen any permanent expansion of health care. In fact, millions stand to lose their access to Medicaid when the public health emergency ends. Meanwhile, inflation and debt are forcing poor and low-income households to make terrible choices between paying for medication or utility bills, dinner or diapers. This ongoing violence continues amidst congressional inaction, despite broad public support for laws and policies that would lift these burdens for tens of millions of people.
As people of faith, we are pained by a society that devalues the lives of children and of the 140 million Americans who live in poverty or have such low incomes that they could not afford a $400 emergency. We must also call out the stark contrast between the policies and resources devoted to the poor and the hundreds of billions spent on weapons and war.
These are not isolated incidents or unrelated problems. They reflect what the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., called “the triple evils of racism, economic exploitation, and militarism.”
It’s telling that our political leaders are willing to allow billionaires to increase their combined wealth by over $1.7 trillion during the pandemic, while 20 million households report having too little to eat in the past seven days. It’s no coincidence that in state after state, legislation is being introduced to make voting disproportionately difficult for Americans of color, while these same workers are paid lower wages, hold more dangerous jobs, face greater environmental hazards in their communities, and experience worse health outcomes. And it is shocking that the U.S. spent 7.5 times more on nuclear weapons — of which we already have more than enough to destroy the human race — than on global vaccines to save it.
Such deep racial, economic, political, and environmental injustices may be moral failings of long standing, but they are not without solutions. The Child Tax Credit, which was expanded under last year’s American Rescue Plan, brought nearly 4 million children above the poverty line and slashed food insufficiency by a quarter. But that expansion expired at the end of 2021. Congress failed to renew it.
The same goes for the Earned Income Tax Credit, which is one of our most successful anti-poverty programs. In 2018, it benefited more than 22 million working families and individuals while lifting about 5.6 million people above the poverty line, more than half children. The American Rescue Plan made the EITC even more effective and more racially equitable by expanding eligibility for childless workers. Yet, once again, Congress let it expire.
We know our country can do better. As Dr. King said more than a half-century ago, “we now have the resources, we now have the skills, we now have the techniques to get rid of poverty.” What’s missing is the political will of our elected leaders, who are far too attentive to corporate lobbyists and far too insensitive to the daily struggles of poor and low-wage people of every race, gender, and ethnicity, including their own constituents.
To achieve the world we seek, we cannot wait for better days. We must follow God’s calling to do right, seek justice, and correct these injustices. That’s why our organizations are working together to promote a moral economic agenda that centers the 140 million and brings people together instead of tearing them apart.
This month, thousands of people from every state across this great nation will converge on Washington to demand a Third Reconstruction. Together, we will press for national healing by eliminating persistent racial inequities, guaranteeing a decent standard of living to all those living within our borders, protecting and expanding our civil and constitutional rights, and transforming the war and fossil fuel-based economy. Together, we will help the United States live up to its promise as a truly multi-racial, multi-ethnic democracy in which all people can realize their God-given potential.
Congress has failed to lead. But people of faith will not stand idly by. We invite you to join us in Washington on June 18 for the Mass Poor People’s and Low-Wage Workers’ Assembly and Moral March on Washington and to the Polls.
Bishop Barber is the president of Repairers of the Breach and a co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign. Bridget Moix is the general secretary of the Friends Committee on National Legislation and leads two other Quaker organizations, Friends Place on Capitol Hill and the FCNL Education Fund.
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Kemp backs Collins against Trump-endorsed opponent in Georgia House primary runoff
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R) endorsed Republican congressional candidate Mike Collins on Thursday in Georgia’s 10th Congressional District primary runoff.
The endorsement marks another break between Kemp and former President Trump, who has endorsed Vernon Jones in the runoff election taking place on Tuesday.
“As a conservative small businessman, Mike knows firsthand how the disastrous policies of the Biden administration are hurting hardworking Georgians and communities all across our state,” Kemp said in the endorsement announcement. “Mike is strongly pro-life, pro-2nd Amendment, and will fight hard to put Georgians first in Congress.”
No candidate received a majority of the votes in last month’s primary, which automatically triggered the runoff election.
Collins earned 25.6 percent of the vote in the primary election, leading Jones by 4.1 percentage points, or roughly 4,600 raw votes.
Despite not earning Trump’s endorsement, Collins, the son of the late congressman Mac Collins (R-Ga.), has framed himself as a pro-Trump outsider. He has also highlighted his ownership of a trucking company.
Jones, a former state representative, had mounted an early primary challenge to Kemp in this year’s gubernatorial election.
But he dropped out of the race in February after Trump urged him to run for a House seat or another statewide office instead, promising an endorsement.
Kemp ultimately won last month’s gubernatorial primary in a landslide, beating former Sen. David Perdue (R-Ga.), who was also backed by Trump.
The 10th District is currently represented by Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.), who opted against seeking reelection to the seat as he mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R).
The winner of the Republican primary runoff will face the winner of the Democratic runoff, also scheduled for Tuesday.
The district, which includes Athens, Ga., and other areas east of Atlanta, leans heavily Republican.
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Equilibrium/Sustainability — Support for plant meats doesn't translate to buying
More people support plant-based meats in theory than are willing to buy them in practice, a survey of Finnish shoppers has found.
The survey determined that while shoppers at Finland’s largest grocery chain tended to agree that they should eat less red and processed meat — and more legumes and fish — red meat still accounted for about 63 percent of their protein purchases, according to the study in PLoS Sustainability and Transformation.
Plant-based proteins made up only 8 percent of weekly purchases, the study found.
“Despite the media hype and accumulating evidence supporting sustainable protein sources” consumer purchases were dominated by “red meat preference and low regard for plant-based options,” the authors said in a statement.
Red meat, particularly beef, generates the most greenhouse gas emissions of any food, according to Our World in Data.
Two wrinkles: The study looked only at people in Finland and included disproportionately more highly educated and high-income people — as well as more women — relative to the population at large.
The barrier is preference, not price: “Low income does not appear to be a barrier to buying more sustainable alternatives, as there is a wide price range within all protein sources,” researchers found.
Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. We’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Send us tips and feedback. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here.
Today we’ll look at this week’s second oil spill in Michigan’s Flint River. Then we’ll take a look at how geothermal energy in Iceland has powered a circular economy of related businesses, from fish and algae farms to swimming pools and breweries.
Oil seeps into Flint River
For the second time in one week, thousands of gallons of a still-unidentified oil-based material spilled into Michigan’s Flint River on Wednesday, raising the concern of environmental activists in the region.
- Officials from the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy estimated that the spill amounted to several thousand gallons and that first responders were deploying a boom across the river to absorb the material, MLive reported.
- The spill spanned about 5 miles long, according to the outlet.
Activists fear for safety: “For the second time in one week, we have infrastructure that has been called safe and has failed, leaking oil into our waterways and we know it’s not going to be able to be fully cleaned up,” Sean McBrearty, coordinator of the Oil & Water Don’t Mix campaign, told MLive.
A slippery history: “No oil spill has ever been fully cleaned up,” added McBrearty, whose campaign is fighting to shut down Enbridge Line 5, a pipeline that sends crude oil and natural gas from western to eastern Canada via the Great Lakes states.
The previous spill, which originated at the Algoma Steel Mill in Ontario, dumped about 5,300 gallons of machine-lubricating oil into the river about a week ago, MLive noted.
Drinking water not in danger: Officials said that the region’s drinking water was not threatened as a result of the spill, The Associated Press reported.
Flint last used the river as a drinking water supply in 2014-15, until contamination from lead prompted the city to return to a regional water supplier.
Ticking time bomb: Following Wednesday’s spill, the Michigan League of Conservation Voters described the consecutive events as “a wakeup call” that the government should shut down the pipeline.
The two spills “should be taken as a clear warning of the danger of oil pipelines in our waters,” Bentley Johnson, federal government affairs director for Michigan League of Conservation Voters, said in a statement.
“Our water and our health are clearly threatened,” Johnson added, describing the system as a “ticking time bomb in our Great Lakes.”
OIL SPILL IMPACT GREATER THAN THOUGHT
Humans are responsible for more than 90 percent of the world’s oil slicks, a new study has found.
These findings represent a significant shift from previous investigations, which estimated that about half came from human sources and half from natural ones, according to the study, published on Thursday in Science.
- Researchers from the U.S. and China said they teamed up to map oil pollution across the Earth’s oceans, using artificial intelligence to scrutinize more than 560,000 satellite images from 2014 to 2019.
- Because oil slicks are made of microscopically thin layers on the surface of the ocean, short-lived patches are constantly moving around with the wind, currents and waves, according to the scientists. But artificial intelligence enabled the researchers to analyze the huge collection of radar images.
Oil spills big and small: “What’s compelling about these results is just how frequently we detected these floating oil slicks,” co-author Ian MacDonald, a professor at Florida State University, said in a statement.
The slicks came “from small releases, from ships, from pipelines, from natural sources such as seeps in the ocean floor and then also from areas where industry or populations are producing runoff that contains floating oil,” according to MacDonald.
- The researchers found that most were near coastlines — about half were within 25 miles of the shore and 90 percent were within 100 miles, according to the study.
- They observed fewer slicks in the Gulf of Mexico in comparison to the rest of the world, which they attributed to the effectiveness of government regulation and enforcement.
Importance of our coasts: In the U.S., coastal waters support many key fish species and provide habitat for 85 percent of migratory bird species to breed, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
A potential global solution: “If we can take those lessons and apply them to places globally, where we have seen high concentrations of oil slicks, we could improve the situation,” MacDonald said.
Geothermal energy powering the circular economy
Using the byproducts of one industry to help support the green development of others is a central component of the circular economy.
The Hill this week visited two Iceland “resource parks” built around geothermal energy to see this process in action.
- What’s geothermal again?: This type of energy relies on tapping heat from deep within the Earth for power. (For more on geothermal energy and its central role in Iceland, check out our dispatch from Wednesday.)
- Why it’s key: Optimizing geothermal resources and creating markets for material that would otherwise go to waste are essential in places like Iceland, which fulfills nearly all its electricity and heat demand from renewable energy.
By taking a circular approach to geothermal energy, Iceland’s power producers turn the resource’s waste products into ingredients — and revenue streams — for other industries.
Multiple use: “You can imagine it as we use the same drop of water many times,” Árni Magnússon of GeoSurvey, which develops geothermal resources, told Equilibrium.
- For example, the nearly 400-degree Fahrenheit steam that powers the HS Orka’s Svartsengi power station goes first to turn a turbine.
- Then, once it has cooled to below the boiling point, the heat is drawn off through heat exchangers and used for applications like warming greenhouses and fishponds or processing cosmetics.
How do you draw off heat? The process is completed by using a heat exchanger, where a pipe containing cold water runs next to — and draws heat from — a closed loop of hot water.
The heat from the geothermal water warms up the cold water — which can then be used to move heat energy to houses, factories or businesses.
Practical benefits: The exchange of heat without mixing water means that brewery Ölverk can use geothermal waste heat to boil water “without our beer smelling of farts,” CEO Laufey Sif Lárusdóttir told Equilibrium, referring to the characteristic hydrogen sulfide smell that can accompany geothermal steam.
Baths and tomatoes: In many parts of Iceland, for example, the heat serves to warm swimming pools and the country’s famous thermal baths or power commercial greenhouses that grow peppers and tomatoes.
Sharing streams: The particular needs of geothermal energy provide many niches for other businesses to fill, creating new economies of scale.
- For example, geothermal plants draw cold water out of the ground to cool their turbines — and inject the warmed-up water back into the ground where it can replenish the pressure in the steam chambers below.
- This cycle yields additional products — from brine, cold water, steam and even carbon dioxide — that other businesses can use.
PROFITING FROM A CIRCULAR ECONOMY
By placing many different industries near geothermal plants, plant operators are able to create “ecosystems” of green businesses that use each other’s byproducts or infrastructure to lower costs and raise profits.
- For example, startup Vaxa grows algae to produce protein and Omega-3 fatty acids for use in supplements and by lab-grown meat products using water, electricity and waste heat from the Hellisheiði Power Station power plant in southwest Iceland.
- Most indoor algae farms struggle with discharging excess heat from their LED grow lights — but Vaxa is able to dump its heat into cold water drawn by the plant, rather than having to pay for electricity to cool it.
The warmed-up water then rejoins, and is sent back underground along with, the wastewater stream from the power plant, where it helps maintain the pressure that drives the geothermal energy process.
“The science we use would work anywhere, but the economics depend on geothermal,” Vaxa founder and CEO Kiddi Hafliðason told Equilibrium.
- Amid the lichen-covered lava fields around the Svartsengi power station, about 30 miles from Reykjavik — which is owned by HS Orka, Iceland’s largest private geothermal company — several businesses turn the plant’s waste streams into profit.
- Land-based aquaculture firms like nearby Samherji fish farm, for example, draw heat from the water leaving the plant — allowing the farm’s managers to run operations 30 to 40 percent cheaper than if they had to buy electricity to heat the water themselves.
Expanding further: These economies of scale have helped HS Orka to host a mutually-reinforcing array of businesses at their Resource Park, manager Dagný Jónsdóttir told Equilibrium, noting that they are looking for additional businesses that can make use of the waste from existing businesses.
The Resource Park is in talks with fertilizer producers, who could buy the waste from fish farms, Jónsdóttir added — describing the fish feces from land-based arctic char and steelhead farms as an additional revenue stream.
Why bother capturing that waste? The answer may be obvious. “We make money off it,” Jónsdóttir said. “Every stream, we sell for money.”
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Among the most problematic waste streams to come off a geothermal power plant — or any other thermal plant — is carbon dioxide, a primary culprit in global warming.
On Friday, Equilibrium will explore efforts to capture the gas and turn it into stone. This reporting is supported in part by Green by Iceland, a public-private partnership.
Water Wednesday
Heat kills thousands of Kansas cattle, residents without tap water in West Texas and feral cats threaten the tiny marsupials of Kangaroo Island.
Extreme heat kills Kansas cattle
- Thousands of Kansas cattle have died in the past few days due to high heat and humidity, further straining an industry that is struggling amid extreme weather and escalating production costs, The Washington Post reported.
West Texas town waterless in a heat wave
- Collapsing pressure from a broken water main left the 165,000 residents of the West Texas city of Odessa without water in the midst of nearly-100 degree temperatures, forcing the city to distribute bottled drinking water and deploy water trucks for filling buckets, The Associated Press reported.
Feral cats threatening Australian marsupial: study
- Predatory cats are threatening the survival of the critically endangered Kangaroo Island dunnart — a mouse-sized marsupial found only on Kangaroo Island, off the coast of South Australia, a new study in Scientific Reports has found.
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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