The number of Americans quitting their jobs remains near record highs even as the economy appears to be inching closer to a deeper slowdown.
We’ll also look at a potential slump in private sector hiring and why mortgage applications dipped at the end of last month.
But first, here are five of the biggest takeaways from the FBI’s Trump and Mar-a-Lago filing.
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 and Aris Folley. Subscribe here.
Americans still quitting jobs despite recession fears
Interest rates are rising, inflation is lingering at four-decade highs, the economy appears to be slowing and experts fear a recession is on the way. But Americans are still quitting their jobs at near-record rates in the face of growing economic uncertainty.
The percentage of American workers who quit their jobs set a record earlier this year and has only dropped slightly as the economy slows from two years of torrid growth.
After reaching 2.9 percent this spring, the quits rate dropped to 2.7 percent in July, according to data released Tuesday by the Labor Department.
The idea of quitting a job amid a period of increased cost of living and a dubious economic future may seem counterintuitive. But the labor market has remained stacked in favor of workers, who see ample opportunities to boost their earnings to supplant increased costs from inflation.
There were roughly two open jobs for every unemployed American, according to Labor Department data, giving job seekers ample opportunities to find new jobs with better pay or working conditions.
And businesses are still scrambling to find enough workers to keep up with consumer spending — which is well above pre-pandemic levels — from a workforce that remains smaller than it was before COVID-19.
“Once job seekers know it’s possible to attain a higher wage, their expectations may shift and act as a pull factor in searching for a higher dollar amount,” wrote AnnElizabeth Konkel, an economist at Indeed Hiring Lab, in a Monday analysis.
Mortgage applications sunk as interest rates spiked to end August
Mortgage applications dropped last week as interest rates on home loans spiked higher, according to data released Wednesday by the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA).
The MBA’s market composite index, which measures mortgage lending among the trade group’s members, fell 3.7 percent last week after seasonal adjustments.
The drop came as the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate rose to 5.8 percent, the highest level since mid-July.
Home sales have fallen sharply since March as the Federal Reserve began a series of interest rate hikes meant to slow the economy. Higher mortgage interest rates make monthly payments on homes more expensive and reduce the number of buyers in the market. The squeeze of higher interest rates and fewer buyers could also force sellers to reduce their asking prices.
While the Fed does not directly control the interest rates charged on mortgages, lenders typically boost rates in line with how high they expect the central bank to hike borrowing costs across the economy. The recent spike in rates follows several speeches from top Fed officials, including Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who insisted the bank would continue to hike interest rates to fight high inflation.
Higher mortgage rates have also taken a bite out of refinancing applications, which fell 8 percent last week. Joel Kan, MBA’s associate vice president of economic and industry forecasting, said “purchase applications have declined in eight of the last nine weeks, as demand continues to shrink due to higher rates and a weaker economic outlook.”
Job growth in the private sector continued to slow in August, with companies adding 132,000 jobs, according to an ADP job report released Wednesday.
“Our data suggests a shift toward a more conservative pace of hiring, possibly as companies try to decipher the economy’s conflicting signals,” ADP’s chief economist Nela Richardson said in a statement. “We could be at an inflection point, from supercharged job gains to something more normal.”
The August numbers are down from July, when the private sector added almost 270,000 jobs, according to ADP. Job growth is also much lower than anticipated, with economists having predicted 225,000 jobs added, according to CNN Business.
The slowdown comes as debate continues over where the economy is headed and whether a recession is imminent. After hitting a 40-year high of 9.1 percent in June, inflation dipped slightly in July to 8.5 percent, aided by a drop in gas prices.
Americans’ confidence in the economy has improved compared to July, but the public still evaluates the economy negatively, according to a new Gallup poll.
Gallup’s economic confidence index improved from -51 in July to -39 in August, returning to the levels seen in March in April.
The index measures Americans’ evaluations of current economic conditions and whether the economy is improving or worsening on a theoretical scale of +100 to -100.
Sixteen percent of U.S. adults rated current economic conditions as “excellent” or “good,” compared to 14 percent in July. Forty-seven percent of respondents described conditions as “poor,” a five-point drop from when 52 percent said so last month.
President Biden on Wednesday announced plans for a 4.6 percent average pay raise for civilian federal employees in 2023.
In a letter announcing the plans to Congress, the president noted “growing recruitment and retention challenges” for federal agencies and “eroded compensation” in federal positions.
Here’s what else we have our eye on:
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday authorized updated COVID-19 booster shots specifically targeting a subvariant of omicron.
The majority of Americans support the Biden administration’s new student debt relief initiative, according to a new The Economist-YouGov poll.
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.
One small town in Iowa is trying to figure out where their time capsule is buried, though they’re apparently pretty certain it’s under a layer of concrete.
Today in health care, the Food and Drug Administration cleared updated booster shots, but how many people will be motivated to get them?
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 and Joseph Choi. Subscribe here.
FDA clears updated vaccines ahead of fall campaign
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Wednesday authorized updated COVID-19 booster shots specifically targeting a subvariant of omicron.
The move comes ahead of a fall campaign to give Americans booster shots, which is expected to launch in the coming days.
The step marks the first time the vaccines have been updated since the first shots were cleared at the end of 2020, and the updated shots are designed to catch up to evolutions in the virus.
The shots from Pfizer and Moderna target the omicron subvariants BA.4 and BA.5, as well as the original virus.
Next step tomorrow: The shots can begin going into arms once the final step in the process, a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention committee, clears them, which is expected to occur on Thursday.
The big question: How many people will actually want the new shots, given that uptake for the existing booster shots has lagged?
Only about half of people who got the first two shots received the initial booster dose.
Seeking to keep up with the ever-evolving virus, the FDA did not wait for the time-consuming process of going through full clinical trials on this tweaked vaccine.
But it noted that it is highly confident that the vaccines are safe and effective. The agency pointed to the millions of doses of the original vaccines that have been given, as well as data from another version of the updated vaccine, along with preliminary data on this one.
Life expectancy in the United States fell for the second straight year, fueled by COVID-19, according to a report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published Wednesday.
The two-year decline was steep, down 2.7 years between 2019 and 2021. Life expectancy was 76.1 years in 2021, down from 77 years in 2020 and 78.8 years in 2019.
That is the largest drop in decades: It is the first two-year decline in life expectancy since 1961-1963, the CDC said.
Life expectancy in the U.S. is now back to the level it was in 1996.
The biggest factor: Making up about half of the change was COVID-19. Other factors included overdose deaths and heart disease.
“Overall, we have reversed 26 years of health progress in US, with average life expectancy now falling to levels not seen since 1996,” tweeted Tom Bollyky, director of the global health program at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Racial disparities:
For American Indian and Alaska Native people, in particular, the decline over two years was a massive 6.6 years.
The decline was about four years for Hispanic people and Black people, compared to 2.4 years for white people.
MORE TELEHEALTH USE LINKED TO REDUCED OVERDOSE RISK: STUDY
A study published on Wednesday found that the expanded use of telehealth services during the coronavirus pandemic was associated with a reduced risk of opioid overdoses.
Researchers from multiple federal agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) looked at data from more than 170,000 Medicare beneficiaries.
The study split the observed beneficiaries into two groups — one that initiated opioid use disorder (OUD) care before the pandemic and another that initiated care after the outbreak began.
The findings:
The researchers found that beneficiaries in the COVID-19 pandemic group were likely to receive OUD-related telehealth care and were also more likely to receive corresponding medications.
Those who received OUD-related telehealth care were more likely to retain medical treatments for their conditions and had a lower risk of experiencing a medically treated overdose.
Despite these benefits, the study noted there were some irregularities in who was receiving telehealth care. Beneficiaries who were Black or lived in the South were less likely to receive telehealth services.
UN PANEL CALLS ON US TO ADDRESS EFFECTS OF DOBBS RULING
A United Nations committee called on the United States on Tuesday to take steps to eliminate racial and ethnic disparities in sexual and reproductive health care in the aftermath of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade.
The U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination said in a release that the Supreme Court’s June ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which struck down federal abortion protections, will disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minorities.
The panel expressed concern that such groups have higher maternal mortality rates, higher risk of unwanted pregnancies and lack means to overcome socioeconomic barriers to accessing safe abortions.
The committee said the decision could be especially impactful on lower-income individuals.
Concerns were also raised about the use of excessive force by law enforcement officials against racial and ethnic minorities in the U.S. and the “continued impunity for abuses” by police and U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials. It said the U.S. should review federal and state legislation on the use of force to ensure they are in line with international standards and law.
Calif. bill requires big tech to consider kids’ mental health
California’s legislature has passed legislation that will require social media companies to consider the physical and mental health of minors who use their platforms.
Senate Bill AB 2273 passed in the state’s Senate chamber in a 75-0 vote on Tuesday. The proposed legislation is headed to the desk of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), though it is unclear whether Newsom will sign the legislation into law, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The bill’s effects:
The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, which was first introduced by state representatives Buffy Wicks (D), Jordan Cunningham (R) and Cottie Petrie-Norris (D), will “require a business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children to comply with specified requirements.”
Those requirements include configuring all default privacy settings offered by the social media platform unless the platform can demonstrate a reason why its setting is suited for children and provide information about privacy information, terms and conditions, policies and community standards, all using clear language suited to the age of children likely to access their platform.
The proposed bill will also prohibit social media platforms from using the child user’s information for any purpose other than intended and ban platforms that use children’s information that could be detrimental to their health.
Industry pushback: “We support the intent of this bill and protecting children online remains a priority. But it must be done responsibly and effectively. While this bill has improved, we remain concerned about its unintended consequences in California and across the country,” Tech industry trade group TechNet’s Executive Director of California and the Southwest Dylan Hoffman said in a statement to The Hill.
GENEVA (AP) — China’s discriminatory detention of Uyghurs and other mostly Muslim ethnic groups in the western region of Xinjiang may constitute crimes against humanity, the U.N. human rights office said in a long-awaited report released Wednesday.
The report calls for an urgent international response over allegations of torture and other rights violations in Beijing’s campaign to root out terrorism.
U.N. human rights chief Michelle Bachelet brushed aside Chinese calls for office to withhold the report, which follows her own trip to Xinjiang in May and which Beijing’s contends is part of a Western campaign to smear China’s reputation.
The report has fanned a tug-of-war for diplomatic influence with the West over the rights of the region’s native Uyghurs and other predominantly Muslim ethnic groups.
The report, which Western diplomats and U.N. officials said had been all but ready for months, was published with just minutes to go in Bachelet’s four-year term. It was unexpected to break significant new ground beyond sweeping findings from independent advocacy groups and journalists who have documented concerns about human rights in Xinjiang for years.
But Bachelet’s report comes with the imprimatur of the United Nations, and the member states that make it up. The run-up to its release fueled a debate over China’s influence at the world body and epitomized the on-and-off diplomatic chill between Beijing and the West over human rights, among other sore spots.
Hours before the release, China’s U.N. ambassador, Zhang Jun, said Beijing remained “firmly opposed” to the release.
“We haven’t seen this report yet, but we are completely opposed to such a report, we do not think it will produce any good to anyone,” Zhang told reporters outside the Security Council. ”We have made it very clear to the high commissioner and in a number of other occasions that we are firmly opposed to such a report.”
“We all know so well that the so-called Xinjiang issue is a completely fabricated lie out of political motivations, and its purpose is definitely to undermine China’s stability and to obstruct China’s development,” he added.
Bachelet said in recent months that she received pressure from both sides to publish — or not publish — the report and resisted it all, treading a fine line all the while noting her experience with political squeeze during her two terms as president of Chile.
In June, Bachelet said she would not seek a new term as rights chief, and promised the report would be released by her departure date on Aug. 31. That led to a swell in back-channel campaigns — including letters from civil society, civilians and governments on both sides of the issue. She hinted last week her office might miss her deadline, saying it was “trying” to release it before her exit.
Bachelet had set her sights on Xinjiang upon taking office in September 2018, but Western diplomats voiced concerns in private that over her term, she did not challenge China enough when other rights monitors had cited abuses against Muslim Uyghurs and others in Xinjiang.
In the past five years, the Chinese government’s mass detention campaign in Xinjiang swept an estimated million Uyghurs and other ethnic groups into a network of prisons and camps, which Beijing called “training centers” but former detainees described as brutal detention centers.
Beijing has since closed many of the camps, but hundreds of thousands continue to languish in prison on vague, secret charges.
Some countries, including the United States, have accused Beijing of committing genocide in Xinjiang.
Imagine waking up every day to the smell of sulfur dioxide, gas fumes and other foul-smelling chemicals. Even if you don’t live near gas export terminals on the Gulf Coast, you know the air must smell bad. Imagine your children are constantly breathing these chemicals and your elders have among the highest incidence of cancer in the nation. Now imagine that you also hear daily sirens warning of gas leaks and potential catastrophic explosions. What you’ve imagined — this is the reality for Gulf Coast communities.
Too many of our coastal communities are being sacrificed to the fossil fuel industry, an industry whose main product is driving climate change, leading to rising seas, and causing increasingly volatile, damaging storms. And while the billions in investments in clean energy sources and climate mitigation passed by Congress as part of the Inflation Reduction Act are undeniably historic, they won’t save these communities.
Despite all evidence that the U.S. must dramatically scale back the production and use of fossil fuels — not just to save frontline communities but to protect communities throughout our country and the world that are harmed by climate change — the industry is planning to actually expand export capacity at 18 projects along the Gulf Coast.
The little-known agency that almost always approves these facilities is called the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). The commission reviews proposals to construct and operate interstate gas pipelines, storage facilities and export terminals. But for too long, FERC has not done its duty to thoroughly review those proposals and has been failing Black, brown and Indigenous Americans. People of color who are already overburdened by toxic and dangerous facilities in their neighborhoods are the same people bearing the brunt of climate change exacerbated by those facilities.
For decades, FERC has failed to properly scrutinize the damage new export terminals and other gas infrastructure do to communities of color. One startling example: In 2020, commissioners approved construction of new pipelines and an export facility in the Rio Grande area of Texas, despite recognizing that the project would pose health threats — primarily to Hispanic or Latino people who are already overburdened by pollution.
It’s well past time for FERC to step up and do much more and last year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit agreed, sending the Rio Grande decision and another permit issue back to FERC, ruling that the agency’s analysis was “deficient.”
Early this year, the commission proposed plans to change how the agency evaluates the environmental justice and climate impacts of new gas infrastructure. These long-overdue reforms would help ensure that FERC fulfills its responsibility to take a hard look at the impacts of proposed projects on communities of color and the climate. But it seems after renewed protests from some Republicans in Congress and the gas industry, FERC walked back its reforms, and the new protections communities of color so urgently need are now tangled up in the insider politics of Washington.
As advocates for Gulf Coast communities imperiled by terminal development, we — John Beard and Roishetta Ozane — know and live the damage: toxic plumes poisoning drinking water in Lake Charles, dead fish floating in the Calcasieu River and children’s lungs compromised by harmful chemicals while they play in their backyards. To underscore the urgency of this issue, we’ve invited FERC commissioners to tour our communities and witness the environmental and social devastation resulting from export facilities and other gas infrastructure.
As Attorney General of Maryland, Brian Frosh co-leads a coalition of attorneys general demanding that FERC fulfill its obligations under federal law and put environmental safeguards in place immediately. Research clearly demonstrates that new gas infrastructure projects will have dire environmental impacts on local communities and the climate. And given its duty to protect the public interest, FERC must conduct comprehensive analyses of whether a proposed project is needed and aligned with state and national climate goals, rather than simply relying on the say-so of the project developer and affiliated corporations, whose interests lie in profits.
FERC cannot simply ignore the message from the D.C. Circuit: If the commission does not follow the ruling, its decisions on these two policy statements will face significant legal risk. Communities of color cannot bear mistreatment any longer. We look forward to the commissioners’ visit to Texas and Louisiana, where they will see firsthand all that hangs in the balance for our children, our communities and our future.
John Beard is the director of Port Arthur Community Action Network in Texas,
Brian Frosh is the attorney general of Maryland.
Roishetta Ozane is the organizing director for Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas for Healthy Gulf, as well as the founder, director and CEO of The Vessel Project of Louisiana.
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When federal authorities went to Mar-a-Lago in June to retrieve classified materials stored there, former President Trump greeted FBI agents and said, “Whatever you need, just let us know.”
But the Justice Department’s second visit to Trump’s Florida home would not be its last — with authorities contending the Trump team instead sought to conceal additional records on the property in spite of a sworn statement from Trump’s attorney indicating they had all been turned over.
A late-Tuesday filing offers the most detailed account yet from the government about the extent to which Trump and his legal team sought to stymie the Justice Department’s efforts to recover the documents, the emergence stemming from a case filed by Trump seeking to halt the investigation.
The most damaging assertion claims that following that visit, government documents were “likely concealed and removed” — a detail renewing focus on the obstruction of justice charges listed in the warrant secured to search the property.
“There are plenty of cases in which the government has declined to prosecute where classified records were stored in unauthorized locations. One of the factors that often resulted in charges being pursued was the extent to which the individual obstructed efforts to locate and recover those records, as well as evidence of willful (as opposed to inadvertent) retention,” said Brad Moss, a national security law expert.
“If nothing else, the government filing fleshed out in new detail not just efforts by Trump to resist the return of the records but apparent efforts to conceal them so government officials could not find them,” he added, pointing to still-sealed evidence submitted to the judge.
The release of the warrant earlier this month revealed Trump’s home was searched in connection with fears over possible violations of the Espionage Act.
But the two other statutes on the warrant covering obstruction of an investigation and willful concealment of records could play just as important a role if the Department of Justice (DOJ) decides to pursue a prosecution.
“The government also developed evidence that government records were likely concealed and removed from the storage room and that efforts were likely taken to obstruct the government’s investigation,” the DOJ wrote in its filing, accompanied by a photo of classified materials recovered earlier this month.
“These concerns are not hypothetical in this case,” it added.
Documents were found in Trump’s personal desk and interspersed among his personal belongings, including his passports.
“The obstructive conduct is going to be, I think, an important factor in the discretionary decision that the department will have to make, which is not can it bring a charge but should it bring a charge?” Andrew Weissmann, a former general counsel for the FBI and a senior prosecutor for the Mueller investigation, told The Hill.
“They’re going to be looking at the full scope of the criminality. And the length and type of obstructive conduct — I think it’s going to weigh heavily in favor of bringing charges,” he said, both for obstruction and for the Espionage Act violations laid out in the warrant.
The Tuesday night filing attacks two main arguments Trump has laid out in the weeks since Mar-a-Lago was searched: that he cooperated with authorities and that he had declassified the materials at his home.
The filing indicates that even following a May subpoena, it took almost a month of negotiations before Trump’s legal team complied with a request to turn over all remaining classified materials.
And even then, the filing notes, “the former President’s counsel explicitly prohibited government personnel from opening or looking inside any of the boxes that remained in the storage room.”
They were instead given a sworn statement that Trump’s team had done a “diligent search” to comply with a subpoena.
Ryan Goodman, co-director of the Reiss Center on Law and Security at New York University School of Law, said the details puncture claims that Trump was “in favor of cooperation.”
“We know now, as the Department of Justice put it, that ‘critically’ they were explicitly prohibited from looking at other boxes in the storage room. I think that was a direct refutation of what would otherwise be an important piece of evidence for the defense,” he said.
In June, Trump’s team turned over 38 documents bearing classified markings. But in August, the Justice Department retrieved more than 100.
“That the FBI, in a matter of hours, recovered twice as many documents with classification markings as the ‘diligent search’ that the former President’s counsel and other representatives had weeks to perform calls into serious question the representations made in the June 3 certification and casts doubt on the extent of cooperation in this matter,” the DOJ wrote in the filing.
The filing also goes after Trump’s claim that he had declassified the documents at his home — a highly unusual move given the volume of documents and one he has not yet backed up with evidence.
“When producing the documents, neither counsel nor the custodian asserted that the former President had declassified the documents or asserted any claim of executive privilege,” the filing notes.
“Counsel for the former President offered no explanation as to why boxes of government records, including 38 documents with classification markings, remained at the Premises nearly five months after the production of the 15 boxes and nearly one-and-a-half years after the end of the administration,” it added.
The lack of any explanation for the matter, Goodman said, also undercuts Trump.
“Here we see that it’s obviously a bogus ex post claim for public consumption,” Goodman said.
“Many of us had speculated that that was the case by reading the tea leaves, but it’s very important that the Justice Department made that explicit because it knocks out of contention a potential line of arguments on Trump’s side,” he added, even though it would have made a poor legal defense.
Experts say the strong language in the brief, which contests Trump’s calls for an outside special master, could indicate a prosecution-minded DOJ, one that could take advantage of missteps by Trump’s legal team.
Weissmann called the tone of the brief “appropriate, but to me suggested an adversity that you would see in a criminal case.”
“There are different ways that the department could have responded. I think they were right to use the opportunity to correct the record” and address Trump’s statements on his degree of cooperation and declassification at length, he said.
“It took on each and every false representation except where they really wanted to protect their criminal case,” he said, noting the DOJ didn’t reveal any of its sources.
That the sworn statement from Trump’s representation was quickly demonstrated to be false could put them in legal trouble of their own — something the Justice Department could take advantage of.
Goodman noted that a lawyer is not immune for conduct carried out in their role as an attorney if they took action in furtherance of a crime.
“I think it strongly suggests his members of his legal team face criminal liability for their false statements to the Justice Department, which could break open the case even wider. There’s a reason for those lawyers to end up cooperating with the Justice Department, and attorney-client privilege would not block them from doing so if Trump used them as a conduit for committing criminal acts,” he said.
Weissmann said even if Trump’s attorneys would not cooperate, the DOJ could get a court to approve bringing them before a grand jury and asking a narrow set of questions about the language of the statement.
Such questions could focus on “essentially, the passive voice in the certification, which was ‘I was told a search was done.’ OK, who did the search? And who told you that the search was done? Those are the key questions,” he said.
Moss said Trump and those in his orbit likely could have avoided any legal trouble by actually cooperating with the government and returning the documents.
“As the saying goes, it’s not the crime that gets you but the cover-up,” he told The Hill.
“This never would have been a criminal matter if not for the obstruction of the government’s efforts to recover these clearly properly marked classified documents,” he said.
A new heat wave emerging ahead of the Labor Day weekend will put at least 55 million people from Southern California to the Northwest at risk of dangerous heat and fires.
Huge swaths of the West could see temperatures surpass 100 degrees Fahrenheit, while the Southwest could endure heat above 110 degrees into the coming weekend, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).
And throughout the weekend, these regions will find little relief even at night, the weather service warned.
Officials warn that the heat wave — caused by a layer of warm, dense air pressing down on the West — will add to continuing drought conditions, bringing increased wildfire risk.
“Some records may be broken but record max temps are very high at this time of the year,” the NWS office in Los Angeles told CNN. “Record breaking or not, this prolonged heat wave is going to be very dangerous.”
“This is just the latest reminder of how real the climate crisis is, and how it is impacting the everyday lives of Californians,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) said in a statement Wednesday while announcing efforts to ramp up electricity supply to deal with the coming heat wave.
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. Want a copy of this newsletter in your inbox each week? Subscribe here.
Today we’ll peek at a new device that’s pumping out oxygen on Mars. Then we’ll see how the Southeast’s coming solar boom is leading to thorny legal questions and look at why another round of international climate talks is failing to make progress.
MOXIE instrument reliably produces oxygen on Mars
An instrument the size of a lunchbox has proven it can do the work of a small tree by successfully generating oxygen from the carbon dioxide-rich atmosphere of Mars.
Making Mars breathable: The instrument — called the Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) — has been making oxygen on Mars since last year, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientists who pioneered the effort.
MOXIE touched down on the Red Planet’s surface last year as part of NASA’s Perseverance mission in February 2021.
By the end of the year, the instrument had produced oxygen on seven experimental runs in a variety of atmospheric conditions, times of day and seasons, the researchers found.
As productive as a small tree: The scientists, who published their findings in Science Advances on Wednesday, said MOXIE reached its target of producing six grams of oxygen per hour — equivalent to the rate of a modestly-sized tree on Earth.
Historic use of resources: “This is the first demonstration of actually using resources on the surface of another planetary body, and transforming them chemically into something that would be useful for a human mission,” MOXIE deputy principal investigator Jeffrey Hoffman said in a statement.
Sending a forest ahead: Hoffman and his colleagues said they envision a scaled-up version of MOXIE heading to Mars prior to a human mission, with the intent of producing oxygen at the rate of several hundred trees.
How does it work? The instrument first draws in Martian air through a filter that cleans out contaminants, according to the study.
The air is then pressurized and sent through an apparatus that electrochemically splits the carbon dioxide-rich air into oxygen ions and carbon monoxide.
The oxygen ions are isolated and recombined to create breathable, molecular oxygen, which MOXIE measures for quantity and purity before releasing it into the air.
A big first step: The current version of MOXIE may be small, but scientists say they see its success as a promising first step in making a Mars mission breathable for humans.
“To support a human mission to Mars, we have to bring a lot of stuff from Earth, like computers, spacesuits, and habitats,” Hoffman said.
“But dumb old oxygen? If you can make it there, go for it — you’re way ahead of the game,” he added.
Southeast solar industry faces boom, growing pains
The Southeast is grappling with how to regulate the coming boom in solar manufacturing — an industry whose rapid expected growth is forcing it to confront new legal issues.
Boosting that endeavor are the solar tax credits in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act, which “delivered precisely the durable industrial policy foundation that we’ve long advocated for,” said First Solar spokesman Reuven Proença.
The solar industry had been waiting for a deal like this “for forever,” a spokesman for the South Korean company Qcells told Axios. “This bill is a huge deal,” said the spokesman, whose firm has a factory in Dalton, Ga., and is planning its own expansion.
Jobs are coming: The Inflation Reduction Act — which will provide hundreds of billions to a variety of climate and health programs — could lead to 18,000 U.S. new solar industry manufacturing jobs by 2025, according to the Solar Energy Manufacturing for America Coalition, a trade group representing solar manufacturing workers.
PLANNING FOR SOLAR DISPUTES
Elsewhere in the Southeast, questions remained about how to resolve disputes between solar utilities, vendors and municipalities.
Planning for removal: One such area of contention is how and when to remove aging solar facilities. A new report from the University of Virginia focused on how local officials can get developers to make plans to safely decommission their solar facilities at the end of their lives.
That’s part of an effort to make such deals “a manageable risk for localities but not an undue burden on developers,” report co-author Irene Cox wrote on Wednesday.
Virginia, for example, has 55 solar utility plants as of July, but just a quarter of local governments require that plants have a plan to take their operations down when they are no longer serviceable.
Removing a solar plant can cost a locality over $1 million, according to a report by the University of Virginia.
When deals blow up: Another problem is how to assign blame when a complex solar system — which may contain components from many manufacturers — goes awry.
In North Carolina, Charlotte-area utility Pink Energy is in an ugly dispute with a former business partner over the cause of several house fires stemming from excessive power surges, the Charlotte Observer reported on Wednesday.
Officials from the world’s biggest economies produced a joint climate agreement on Wednesday in Bali, where Indonesia’s environment minister pressed participants to act with urgency, The Associated Press reported.
“We are actually in a climate crisis position, no longer just climate change,” the minister, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, told the AP. “We must work even faster to bring the global temperatures down as low as possible.”
Who was at the meeting? Delegates from the Group of 20 countries gathered for the talks, hosted by this year’s chair Indonesia, according to Reuters.
Environment officials from Australia, Brazil, India, Japan and South Korea, as well as U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry, were among those in attendance.
More bilateral meetings were expected to occur on Thursday.
Top officials from China, Russia and Argentina joined virtually, the AP reported.
What’s in the agreement? Nurbaya said that the joint agreement focuses on three issues: sustainable economic recovery, land- and ocean-based climate action and resource mobilization, according to the AP.
The agreement could help realize the targets of the 2015 Paris climate accord: keeping warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and ideally below 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit).
Nurbaya urged her colleagues to work together through a collaborative approach she described as “environmental multilateralism,” according to the AP.
Multilateral environmental agreements are those made between three or more states that address specific environmental issues at national, regional and global levels, as defined by the United Nations.
“Environmental multilateralism is the only mechanism where all countries, regardless of their size and wealth, stand on equal footing and equal treatment,” Nurbaya said at the meeting, per the AP.
That lack of progress, according to Reuters, was due to objections over language surrounding climate targets as well as the war in Ukraine.
Frustration abounds: Many G-20 countries are frustrated about a lack of concrete climate measures at a time when Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has forced many governments to use more coal than they had envisioned, CNBC reported.
“A lot of countries in the world are strongly condemning the Russian aggression in Ukraine,” Rob Jetten, the Dutch minister for climate and energy, told CNBC in Bali.
“So it’s been hard to have negotiations with the Russians,” he added.
🦦 Mood Boost
Visiting parks beside canals and rivers helps to boost wellbeing for people across all ages, ethnicity and genders, a new study in PLoS One has found.
Best of both worlds: Certain places that mix water and vegetation may be particularly effective, according to the study.
That’s because they provide a unique combination of two healthful types of natural spaces:
Blue spaces, like lakes, rivers and other water features.
Green spaces, like grasslands and forests.
Wild benefits: An added mental boost may come from the likelihood of seeing wildlife — like ducks, herons and fish — in canals and rivers, the researchers noted.
Visitors to river and canal-side parks were “more likely to report feeling safe both during the day and at night, as well as more socially included,” the authors of the PLoS study wrote.
Under pressure: These urban oases — which also lower temperatures for surrounding areas — are under threat from climate change, particularly due to a rising incidence of fire and flood, NPR reported on Wednesday.
That’s forcing civil engineers and park managers from Atlanta to Houston to redesign parks to manage and disperse rising waters, NPR reported.
There’s a bright side: In effect, flood adaptation can often mean converting pure green spaces into mixed green-blue ones — precisely the sort the PLoS study found gave the biggest emotional boost.
🌍 World Wednesday
Africa has a new oldest dinosaur, Galápagos tortoise deaths may have been foul play and how climate change is putting strain on even the digital world.
Scientists discover Africa’s oldest known dinosaur
A team of paleontologists from Virginia Tech and Zimbabwe have discovered and named the oldest dinosaur skeleton ever found in Africa, publishing their findings in Nature on Wednesday. The long-necked dinosaur, Mbiresaurus raathi, is estimated to have been about 6 feet long and roughly equivalent in age to the oldest known dinosaurs — who lived about 230 million years ago, according to the scientists.
Officials in Ecuador are probing the deaths of four giant tortoises in the Galápagos, amid concerns that they were killed by poachers, The Washington Post reported. The State Attorney General’s Office said its environmental crimes division has opened an investigation into the alleged “hunting and slaughter” of the animals, as translated by the Post.
Some Republican candidates are trying to publicly distance themselves from former President Trump just as President Biden is beginning to see small signs of Democrats more openly embracing him.
Trump-endorsed candidates including Pennsylvania Republican Senate nominee Mehmet Oz and Arizona Attorney General nominee Abe Hamadeh have scrubbed aspects of Trump’s presence from their Twitter accounts following their primary victories.
In Arizona, Republican Senate nominee Blake Masters removed language from his campaign website asserting that if the 2020 presidential election had been “free and fair election, President Trump would be sitting in the Oval Office today and America would be so much better off.”
At the same time, Democratic nominees in the key swing states of Ohio and Pennsylvania are planning to appear with Biden in the upcoming weeks.
Of course, it’s not unusual for candidates to downplay some of the more controversial positions they may have staked out during partisan primaries that tend to attract parties’ most loyal — and ideological — voters.
And Republicans aren’t erasing their ties to Trump completely. Oz’s campaign website still prominently features a picture of the former president and notes that he’s been endorsed by Trump. Masters’ website, meanwhile, features a badge on its homepage reading “Trump endorsed.” Trump is set to hold a rally in Pennsylvania Saturday for Oz and Republican gubernatorial nominee Doug Mastriano.
“The endorsement is the first endorsement listed on our website and we changed the banner to thank Pennsylvanians after the recount was completed,” Brittany Yanick, a spokesperson for Oz, said in a statement to The Hill.
But taking steps — even small ones — to create distance from Trump indicates at least some unease about the effects the former president could have on candidates’ abilities to attract crucial voting blocs.
Strategists say GOP nominees may need to walk a tightrope.
Republican candidates, especially those who tied themselves closely to Trump during their primaries, could put themselves at risk of drawing the ire of the former president.
“Look, you run the campaign you need to run in order to win,” one former Trump campaign aide said. “I think what’s so dangerous about that though is that a lot of these candidates still need to square that with the fact that they won their primaries in the first place because of [Trump]. He’s still the most popular person in the party and the base is still going to matter in the general.”
“I don’t think he’s going to bail on anyone and un-endorse them or anything. But he will take notice. If you’re someone who’s, you know, taking his endorsement, his priorities, off your campaign website or whatever, he’s going to notice that.”
But Keith Naughton, a veteran Republican strategist, said that the risk could be worth the reward. While Trump remains deeply popular among the GOP’s most conservative voters, he could prove to be a liability for GOP candidates, especially in states that Trump lost in the 2020 presidential election.
“They have to do what they have to do to win. They have to take those chances,” Naughton said. “And I think it does help. The less they talk about him, the better. The more they talk about Biden and his opponents the better they are.”
Brad Bannon, a Democratic strategist who is also an opinion contributor to The Hill, said he thinks some Republicans are distancing themselves from Trump because “Trump becomes more of a liability every day,” noting the recent controversy following the FBI’s search at Mar-a-Lago.
“I think Trump is on the roller coaster to hell right now. And I think you’re going to see more and more Republicans distance themselves as these legal problems and the espionage charges and classified documents become more prominent, and they will.”
Meanwhile, in a sign of the changing political landscape, some members of Biden’s party appear to be moving closer toward him.
Ohio Democratic Senate nominee Tim Ryan, Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman and Pennsylvania gubernatorial candidate Josh Shapiro changed course in recent weeks, with Shapiro appearing alongside Biden on Tuesday and Ryan and Fetterman planning to appear with Biden in the coming days and weeks.
“Tim proudly fought to pass the CHIPS Act, which will ensure Ohio workers dominate the industries of the future and laid the foundation for Intel’s transformational investment into Ohio, and he wouldn’t miss this historic moment for anything,” Ryan campaign spokesperson Izzi Levy said, referring to a recently-enacted law to boost domestic chip manufacturing and investment in scientific research.
All three cited scheduling conflicts in missing previous stops with the president. But taken together the latest appearances are notable, coming against the backdrop of key legislative wins, executive steps and a slight uptick in polling numbers.
Democrats have recently celebrated the passage of their sweeping health, tax and climate package; an impressive July jobs report; and Biden’s recent executive action to wipe out some student debt for many federal loan borrowers.
Democratic strategist Basil Smikle attributed the shift to “recent legislative successes, the executive order on student loans, which would hopefully spur a lot of younger voters to come out in the midterm.”
“That change, slight as it may be, is actually an important milestone,” he added.
Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Charlie Crist, who’s taking on Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in November, spoke about wanting Biden to campaign with him in a way many Democrats in recent weeks and months have not — emphatically.
He said in an interview on CNN after winning his primary he would “absolutely” want Biden to come and campaign with him. He added, “He’s a great man. He’s a great president. I can’t wait for him to get down here. I need his help. I want his help. And he’s the best I’ve ever met.”
The White House did not respond to requests for comment for this story.
To be sure, not all Democrats are embracing Biden with open arms, with some trying to distance themselves from the commander-in-chief as he continues to suffer from lagging approval ratings.
Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), whose House seat has been rated as a “toss up” by the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, earlier this month released an ad in which she said that “doesn’t work for Joe Biden. She works for you.”
Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine), who’s been known for bucking his party on Democratic priorities like Build Back Better and a sweeping gun package that was passed earlier this summer, said in an ad this month that he “cracked Biden’s aggressive spending agenda.”
Naughton said that the decision of some Democrats to embrace Biden may simply be a tacit acknowledgement that they won’t be able to escape him entirely.
“Your opponents are going to tie you to this unpopular guy anyway, and it’s too much of a story to try to snub him and generate some real rancor on your own side of the aisle,” Naughton said. “Candidates in these tight races, they’re not going to want Biden around come October.”
Bob Shrum, director of the USC Center for the Political Future and Carmen H. and Louis Warschaw Chair in Practical Politics, said it would be a “mistake” to avoid appearing alongside the president and believed candidates like Golden or Kaptur weren’t gaining any points from distancing themselves from Biden.
“It may be that there are times when you want to campaign with him, times when you don’t want to campaign with him. And that can depend on lots of different circumstances,” Shrum, a veteran Democratic strategist whose clients have included Biden, said. “But I wouldn’t advise them to run an ad, you know, saying ‘I’m different than Joe Biden.’ I mean, talk about issues that people in those districts care about.”
Bannon, the Democratic strategist, suggested that candidates should campaign with Biden given he’ll be a focal point of the midterms.
“I would advise them to campaign with Joe Biden because the reality is a lot of voters are going to make this decision, whether the Democratic congressional candidates want it or not, a lot of voters are going to their decisions in House races based on their feelings about Joe Biden,” he said.
Seventeen new lawsuits were filed against Lyft alleging that the company doesn’t protect riders and drivers from potential physical and sexual assault.
In other news, the FBI is deploying a team of cybersecurity experts to Montenegro to investigate a massive cyberattack that hit the country’s critical infrastructure over the weekend.
This is Hillicon Valley, detailing all you need to know about tech and cyber news from Capitol Hill to Silicon Valley. Send tips to The Hill’s Rebecca Klar and Ines Kagubare. Subscribe here.
Lyft targeted in 17 new assault lawsuits
Lyft passengers and drivers who say they were sexually and physically assaulted during Lyft rides sued the ride-hailing company Wednesday, alleging it fails to ensure user safety.
Seventeen new lawsuits were filed against the company from drivers and passengers across the country, including from 13 sexual assault survivors and four physical assault victims.
“Part of the reason that we’re filing so many of these cases today is to highlight this issue so that there can be a change. This is the first time this many cases [were] filed the same time across the country on behalf of both riders and drivers, as well as sexual assault survivors and victims of physical assault,” said Adam Wolf, an attorney representing the cases.
Survivors who spoke at a press conference Wednesday said Lyft did not have adequate safety measures in place and did not take adequate measures in response to reports of the attacks.
Lyft’s response: A Lyft spokesperson said the company is “committed to helping keep drivers and riders safe.”
“While safety incidents on our platform are incredibly rare, we realize that even one is too many. Our goal is to make every Lyft ride as safe as possible, and we will continue to take action and invest in technology, policies and partnerships to do so,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
The spokesperson also referred The Hill to Lyft’s existing safety policies, which include requiring all drivers to pass a background check before driving with Lyft and every year after that. Lyft also has features for riders, including one that allows riders to connect with an ADT security professional through the app to provide live support.
The attack targeted Montenegro’s water supply systems, transportation services and online government services. Government officials have reported that the attacks are still ongoing, but that state infrastructure was not permanently damaged.
“Our allies from NATO are helping us overcome the most serious challenge that Montenegro has faced in cyberspace,” Maras Dukaj, the country’s minister of public administration, said on Twitter.
Montenegrin officials have blamed Russia for the attack and said the country is “under a hybrid war at the moment,” the AP reported.
Montenegro joined NATO in 2017 despite opposition from Russia. It also recently joined the European Union’s sanctions against Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
NASA’s Artemis team will take a second shot at a launch on Saturday after the first attempt on Monday was scrubbed.
Team leaders at a media briefing Tuesday said the two-hour launch window for the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket and Orion spacecraft will begin around 2:17 p.m. ET on Saturday. Weather forecasts for Saturday indicate some rainy weather but conditions favorable enough for the team to work with, according to NASA.
The launch team reviewed data from Monday’s launch and settled on a game plan to resolve several issues, including an engine that failed to cool down and led to the launch delay.
John Honeycutt, the manager for the SLS program, said he was confident in the Artemis team’s ability ahead of the second launch attempt.
Snap Inc., the parent company of Snapchat, has announced plans to cut 20 percent of its global workforce due to the rise in inflation and interest rate hikes.
In a statement on Wednesday, Snap Inc. CEO Evan Spiegel confirmed the layoffs, saying that the company is restructuring itself around three new strategic priorities: “community growth, revenue growth, and augmented reality.”
“As a result, we have made the difficult decision to reduce the size of our team by approximately 20%,” Spiegel said in his statement. “The scale of these changes vary from team to team, depending upon the level of prioritization and investment needed to execute against our strategic priorities.”
Senate Bill AB 2273 passed in the state’s Senate chamber in a 75-0 vote on Tuesday. The proposed legislation is headed to the desk of California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), though it is unclear whether Newsom will sign the legislation into law.
The California Age-Appropriate Design Code Act, which was first introduced by state representatives Buffy Wicks (D), Jordan Cunningham (R) and Cottie Petrie-Norris (D), will “require a business that provides an online service, product, or feature likely to be accessed by children to comply with specified requirements.”
The rise of the space tourism industry, along with NASA’s recently postponed Artemis I project, have helped bring space exploration back to the forefront of the national conversation.
But recent research published in Communications Biology highlights the potential health risks astronauts might face upon their return to Earth.
A team of researchers from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai assessed blood samples from 14 astronauts who flew short missions between 1998 and 2001.
Data revealed spaceflights may be associated with DNA mutations that can raise the risk of developing cancer and heart disease throughout individuals’ lifetimes.
That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Technology and Cybersecurity pages for the latest news and coverage. We’ll see you tomorrow.
The thousands of U.S. troops involved in last year’s withdrawal and evacuation from Afghanistan will be awarded the Meritorious Unit Commendation or its equivalent, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced Wednesday.
The decision, made at President Biden’s direction, means all units involved in the retrograde operation from Afghanistan — as well as those from 10 military installations that later housed more than 80,000 Afghan evacuees — will be awarded.
Austin will also direct an expedited review of all units present at the evacuation at Hamid Karzai International Airport to determine whether the Presidential Unit Citation, “or appropriate individual awards,” are also necessary, Austin said in a statement.
“No words can properly honor the deeds we recognize with these awards. What these awards reflect — and what I hope the units who receive them will feel — is the gratitude and love of our nation,” Austin said.
The announcement comes one year after America’s withdrawal from Kabul ended on Aug. 30, 2021.
Following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021, the U.S. military and its allies flew about 124,000 Afghans and Americans out of the country.
The effort did not go smoothly, with 13 U.S. service members and at least 170 Afghans killed in a suicide bombing at the airport, an attack believed to have been carried out by the Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State.
Thousands of Afghans and American civilians hoping escape Taliban rule were also left behind.
Wednesday’s message, meanwhile, sought to thank those involved in the final days of the war and its aftermath.
“No other military could have protected so many lives under such challenging circumstances in such a short amount of time — not just because of our airlift or our logistics capabilities, but most of all because of the immense compassion, skill, and dedication of American Service members,” Austin said.
More pressure is building on Attorney General Merrick Garland to charge former President Trump after the Department of Justice (DOJ) asserted that documents at the former president’s Florida estate were likely shielded from federal investigators.
The DOJ’s most recent court filing, detailing how federal officials’ attempted to recover records and classified documents from Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, revealed that Trump’s team “likely concealed and removed” documents to obstruct the probe.
The classified documents retrieved from Mar-a-Lago in January included secrets related to foreign intelligence, as our colleagues Rebecca Beitsch and Morgan Chalfant reported. While it is unclear what intelligence the documents contained, experts are concerned about whose hands they fell in.
“Documents so sensitive, so protected that senior FBI agents and DOJ attorneys couldn’t even initially review them, were kept at a public resort,” House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) tweeted Wednesday. “Potentially available to God knows who.”
The DOJ has prosecuted individuals for unauthorized disclosures of intelligence, in line with the federal government’s strict rules governing classified information, though Garland has treaded carefully given the case involves a former president.
Prosecutors are likely to hold off on unveiling any charges until after the midterms, Bloomberg reported Wednesday. Prosecutors are barred from taking action that might impact an election 60 days before the election, which would be Sept. 10.
Garland was already under pressure from Democrats to charge Trump as part of the DOJ’s investigation into the Jan. 6, 2021 attack at the Capitol, following a series of revelations unveiled by the House select committee.
And as The Hill has reported, any indictment made against the former president would have to meet an extremely high standard of evidence — one that the DOJ would feel certain would end in a conviction.
Welcome to NotedDC: Your guide to politics, policy & people of consequence in D.C.
In today’s issue: Glimpses of Democratic optimism over Florida and the latest GOP hopeful making his way to New Hampshire. Plus: Federal support for Jackson, Miss.
🐊 Dems see sunny midterm forecast in Florida
Democrats are fighting to make the Sunshine State a bit bluer this November, ramping up their campaigns to oust Sen. Marco Rubio (R) and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) in a state former President Trump won twice.
Here’s where the races stand:
CRIST GOES ALL IN
Rep. Charlie Crist, the Democratic gubernatorial nominee in Florida, has given up his House seat as he seeks a return to the governor’s mansion.
The move, which gives Democrats a smaller majority in the House, puts an emphasis on Crist’s gubernatorial ambitions and campaign to take on DeSantis.
Crist, who switched from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party in 2012, was previously the governor of Florida from 2007 to 2011. He unsuccessfully ran for governor in 2014 and was elected to the House in 2016.
Crist said in a statement that he felt it was “an honor and a privilege” to serve in Congress and “these achievements start and end with you, the people — my bosses — who have guided my work in Congress since Day One.”
DEMS TARGET RUBIO
Democrats are hopeful that Rep. Val Demings‘s (D-Fla.) large fundraising numbers and profile can help take down Rubio, who has served in the Senate since 2010.
Demings, once on the list of President Biden’s potential vice presidential picks, is seen as a rising star in the party, our colleague Max Greenwood writes.
More Democrats are paying attention to the swing state after Demings outraised Rubio by more than $10 million, seeing her numbers as an impressive feat.
Demings’s allies also argue that she is a strong candidate to promote the party’s message of being pro-law enforcement against Republicans’ attacks that Democrats still want to “defund the police” because of her own career as Orlando’s police chief.
But it will be an uphill battle: “Unlike Republican Senate nominees in several other battleground states — like Arizona, Pennsylvania and Georgia — Rubio is a seasoned politician with a track record of winning statewide by wide margins, and the vast majority of public polling in the race between him and Demings shows Rubio in the lead.”
2024 WATCH
Pence heads to New Hampshire
Former Vice President Mike Pence (R) is headed to New Hampshire in September as he flirts with a White House bid.
This will be his second visit in the span of a month to the Granite State, which holds the first-in-the-nation primary. He’s also traveled to South Carolina and Iowa, both early-voting states, too.
Our colleague Brett Samuels reports that he will stump for Republican candidates in hopes to oust Sen. Maggie Hassan (D) and flip the two congressional seats.
Republican Gov. Chris Sununu is also up for reelection in the state, declining to run for Senate, which has fueled speculation that he could run for president in 2024. He recently made headlines after he condemned President Biden for equating the MAGA wing of the Republican Party to “semi-fascism.”
WASHINGTON MOVES
The campaign trail isn’t the only area seeing fresh faces. The Hill’s Karl Evers-Hillstrom has a weekly roundup of where people are moving in the lobbying world (and you can send us your professional updates, too!). Here are some highlights:
Erin Polton joined e-commerce company Shopify as vice president of communications and public affairs, previously serving as special assistant to President Biden and chief of staff at the White House Domestic Policy Council.
Reggie McCrimmon joined Google as government affairs and public policy manager, previously serving as a public policy manager at Twitter.
Allison Crittenden joined JBS USA as senior director of government affairs, previously serving as director of government affairs at the American Farm Bureau Federation.
Mike Romanowski joined Archer Aviation as head of government relations, previously serving as director of policy and innovation at the Federal Aviation Administration.
Stewart Alvarez rejoined the Travel Technology Association as interim president and CEO, coming out of retirement to lead the firm he founded.
WATER CRISIS
Biden offers federal help for Jackson, Miss.
President Biden has issued an emergency declaration for Mississippi over the unfolding water crisis in its capital of Jackson.
Some 180,000 people are without access to clean drinking water in the city after flooding along the Pearl River threw a hobbled treatment plant offline.
Biden’s declaration, issued Tuesday, means the Federal Emergency Management Agency can provide assistance and coordinate disaster relief efforts while the issue is being addressed.
🩺. Workers honored for COVID-19 response
The Department of Labor is inducting the “Essential Workers of the Coronavirus Pandemic” into the Labor Hall of Honor on Thursday.
The Department of Labor Hall of Honor, created in 1988, recognizes people who have made significant contributions to working Americans.
The event will take place at the U.S. Department of Labor’s Frances Perkins Building at 11 a.m.
People who want to nominate a worker who contributed to the recovery from the coronavirus pandemic can go here to submit their info.
