Tag Archives : Build House

NotedDC — Nadler, Maloney prepare for face-off

Two of the most powerful House Democrats are heading into the final week of campaigning as they fight to keep their spot in Congress.

The primary between Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Carolyn Maloney is shaping up to be one of the most consequential incumbent-on-incumbent battles in recent cycles.

Democrats in New York “dread the choice,” one party strategist told us, noting Nadler and Maloney’s roles as chairs of the House Judiciary and Oversight committees, respectively. Both lawmakers were first elected to Congress in 1992.

The two are pitted against each other after redistricting this year and are now squaring off in New York’s newly created 12th District. Nadler currently serves in the 10th District, where Democratic candidates are vying for his open seat. 

Nadler got a leg up in the race this week when he won the endorsement of Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and The New York Times editorial board.

Maloney trashed the endorsement, saying “the old boys network is very, very close.”

“[Schumer’s] very well liked amongst the Democratic primary electorate, his polling is always through the roof,” strategist Jake Dilemani said about how his endorsement could boost Nadler.

“There’s a lot of loyalty,” the Democratic strategist said. “When Schumer ran, Nadler was one of the few elected officials early on who supported him.” 

A DARK HORSE: Suraj Patel, a former Obama administration aide, is looking to oust both Nadler and Maloney from the House. He lost to Maloney by less than 4 points when he ran against her in 2020. 

“The polling that people have seen has him in the hunt,” Dilemani said. “But it’s still an uphill battle to be going against two entrenched incumbents.” 

Welcome to NotedDC: Your guide to politics, policy and people of consequence in D.C. Have some news, juicy gossip, insight or other insider info? Send us tips: Elizabeth Crisp and Kelsey Carolan. 

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What’s next for Liz Cheney 

Rep. Liz Cheney may be about to lose her day job — but that’s not keeping the Wyoming Republican from looking beyond her Tuesday primary.

Cheney, who is in her third term in Congress, is holding tight to the message that’s sparked conservative backlash against her: That former President Trump, with his baseless claims of a “stolen” election, poses an existential threat to the country’s democratic foundations and should be barred from holding future office. 

Some recent polls have Cheney’s challenger — Trump-backed election denier Harriet Hageman — leading by almost 30 points.  

Is she gearing up for a 2024 run? Cheney hasn’t ruled that out yet. But as our colleague Mike Lillis notes, it would be an uphill battle for her to gain the votes of the Republican electorate if Trump is still the face of the party. 

How will she spend the rest of her time in the House? She will continue her public battle against Trump and his allies as vice chair of the Jan. 6 select committee, what she has said is most important to her no matter if she wins or loses the primary.  

A full report is expected to come out before the end of this session, marking her legacy as one of the few Republicans who went against Trump, ostracizing her from her party.  

The Hill’s Mike Lillis has the full story. 

Related endorsement: Alec Baldwin, who portrayed Trump on “Saturday Night Live,” compared Cheney to Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny, saying that she would be a “great candidate for political appointment” in the future. 

Why Trump is racking up so many primary victories

All eyes have been on who former President Trump endorses in the GOP primaries, as some candidates publicly fight for his stamp of approval to get a boost. 

But The Hill’s Emily Brooks reports that Trump’s endorsements might not have as big an influence despite his growing number of victories, which he touts as his grip on the party. 

“Trump’s endorsements of incumbents have often come without members seeking them, a key indication that he is running up his primary endorsement success rate by putting his stamp of approval on members almost certain to win their races,” Brooks reports.

What Trump isn’t saying: Many of the candidates he endorses are incumbents or strong candidates without challengers. For example, he inflated his scorecard of a “perfect record” in the Tennessee primary, as Emily points out, since six of the eight ran unopposed.

Worth noting: “Trump has backed 134 incumbent House members, accounting for more than half the GOP conference. And 66 candidates that Trump endorsed in House races ran or are running in uncontested primaries, or in a nonpartisan primary without any other Republican candidates on the ballot.” 

Will he rack up more? It’s likely that his endorsed House candidate Harriet Hageman in Wyoming will reign victorious on Tuesday along with Alaska Senate candidate Kelly Tshibaka, who is slated to face Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski  on the November ballot.

Read more from our colleague Julia Manchester about how Tuesday could add to his scorecard.

Biden to hit the road 

In a memo to top White House aides, Biden chief of staff Ron Klain unveiled the plans for the “Building a Better America Tour” that will take place in the coming weeks. 

“We will make clear that the President and Congressional Democrats beat the special interests and delivered what was best for the American people,” Klain wrote in the memo circulated among Democrats.  

“Every step of the way, Congressional Republicans sided with the special interests — pushing an extreme MAGA agenda that costs families. The Building a Better America campaign will use all of the tools of the White House to bring these messages to the American people. President Biden, Vice President Harris, the Cabinet, our Hill allies, governors, mayors and allied groups will take this message directly to the American people.” 

The White House advises that in the coming weeks Biden will hold a Cabinet meeting and a Sept. 6 White House celebration to mark the passage of Democrats’ $740 billion health, climate and tax bill.

In the meantime, the Biden team has unveiled a new website, BuildingBackTogether.org, to promote the initiative.  

COVID CURVEBALL

The president wore a mask when signing Democrats’ sweeping health and climate bill Tuesday after first lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 earlier in the day.

Jill Biden tested positive on Tuesday morning while on the Biden family’s vacation in South Carolina.

Our colleague Brett Samuels reports that the first lady is doing well. President Biden just got over a case of COVID-19, leaving isolation roughly two weeks ago. 

🎡 Head to the fair this week

If you’re craving some funnel cake and willing to cross the Potomac this week, Arlington, Va., is holding its annual county fair. 

The fair has something for everyone: A beer garden, axe throwing, food trucks, live music, and even goat yoga.

Check it out from Wednesday to Sunday.

Stay with TheHill.com for the latest and recommend NotedDC to others: thehill.com/noted. See you tomorrow.

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Source: TEST FEED1

Thank young people for the Inflation Reduction Act

When I first left my investing career to dedicate my life to fighting the climate crisis, the reaction from my peers ranged from “that’s a 2050 problem” to “there’s no climate crisis” to “you know solar is never going to be cheap enough, right?” While more than half of S&P 500 companies now voluntarily disclose climate risks in their annual reports, in 2012, most public and private sector leaders treated climate as an issue for hippy tree-huggers, not investors and business leaders. But young people knew better. Despite being relegated to the kids’ table, young people kept showing up and demanding action. It was this resilience and persistence that delivered the Democrats the House in 2018, and the White House and Senate in 2020. Young people did that. By voting in record numbers and staying in the fight when it was unpopular and hard, young people demonstrated an inspiring combination of grit and hope to deliver the historic Inflation Reduction Act. 

A decade ago, a package of this size and nature was unimaginable. In 2009, Democrats and Republicans killed the Waxman-Markey bill together, completely underestimating the impact that inaction would have on our climate, economy and population.

One of the underappreciated but fundamental differences between the electorate of 2009 and today, is the uptick in engagement, passion and dedication of young voters.

I’ve seen this transformation up close. In 2013, I founded what is now the nation’s largest youth voting organization, NextGen, because I saw climate as an existential threat to our society and our planet. I believed we could find the solutions to our problems in broader democracy, broader participation and more power to the people. Young people were growing as a percent of the population, but they were voting at half the rates of other age groups. This led to their perspective on key issues, like climate, being underrepresented in the Democratic Party. Registering over 1.4 million young voters between 2014 and 2020, NextGen has served as a vehicle to empower and give voice to a new generation of leaders.  

During the Democratic presidential primary season in 2015, NextGen launched the “50 by 30” campaign urging candidates to embrace the goal of powering America with more than 50 percent clean and carbon-free energy by 2030. Just seven years ago, this effort was met with pushback from inside the Democratic establishment, described as too bold and going too far. By 2020, the Biden-Harris campaign included a target of 100 percent clean energy by 2035. The party had caught up. 

Going into the 2016 election, like many, we felt confident that year would produce the required majorities to pass bold climate legislation and meet the moment. But we all know how that story went. Rather than passing legislation to reduce our emissions and accelerate our clean energy transition, the Trump administration pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement andelevated the interests of the fossil fuel industry.This retreat not only pulled us off course in our transition to a clean energy economy but seriously reduced our climate leadership on the global stage.

But these setbacks did not deter young people. They continued to organize, march and strike all in the name of climate. Youth voter turnout jumped from 20 percent in 2014 to 36 percent in 2018 — a 79 percent jump, the largest percentage point increase for any age group. Young people won back the House and in doing so, sent a record number of women to the House of Representatives and increased the number of millennials represented in Congress, solidifying a pro-climate majority.

To focus on the past 18 months of negotiations is to miss the forest for the trees. The Inflation Reduction Act is the culmination of a decade of advocacy and persistence. In 2020, 50 percent of young people voted and made the difference in critical Senate races in Michigan, New Hampshire, Virginia, Arizona and twice in Georgia. Young people broke for President Biden by a nearly two-to-one margin, delivering the margin of victory in key red to blue flips like Arizona, Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Their turnout is the reason Biden is signing the largest climate investment in our nation’s history into law Tuesday. 

And of course, voting in 2020 was not the end of the road. Since the Democrats took control of all both chambers of Congress as well as the White House, young people have been protesting and pushing for this legislation. From the Sunrise Movement to NextGen America to congressional staffers conducting a sit-in in Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s (D-N.Y.) office, young people kept the pressure on — even when the legislation seemed dead. Young people are not just the future of the Democratic Party — they’re here now and ready to lead us to more than we can imagine. 

To young people: Thank you for your heart and persistence. Without you, we would not have the Inflation Reduction Act. Without you, Biden would not be in the Oval Office. Without you, we would have lost our ability to meet our climate ambitions. Thank you for focusing on the future and fighting for all of us. 

Tom Steyer is a former Democratic presidential candidate, the founder of NextGen America, and the co-executive chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions.

Source: TEST FEED1

FBI interviewed Trump White House lawyers about documents at center of Mar-a-Lago search: report

The FBI has reportedly interviewed former Trump White House counsel Pat Cipollone and his deputy Patrick Philbin about the documents the former president stored at his Mar-a-Lago residence that were seized in a search last week.

The lawyers were questioned about how boxes of White House documents came to be stored at the Palm Beach, Fla., resort past the end of Donald Trump’s presidential term, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

The National Archives reportedly contacted Philbin when it became aware of the missing documents, but Trump resisted its efforts to reclaim the records, some of which were allegedly marked as classified.

Philbin and Cipollone did not immediately return The Hill’s requests for comment. 

“It’s not theirs, it’s mine,” the former president allegedly argued about the records. 

Fifteen boxes of records were returned to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) in January, according to a NARA release, including “paper records that had been torn up by former President Trump.”

NARA says Trump’s possession of the documents after the end of his time in office violates the Presidential Records Act, which requires their preservation and transfer to the National Archives.

The Justice Department, to which the National Archives had referred the matter, reportedly issued a subpoena for documents that they believed remained at Mar-a-Lago in May.

According to the Times report, a Trump lawyer signed a document affirming that classified material had been turned over, but officials had reason to believe additional records continued to be stored at the residence. 

The FBI executed a search warrant at Mar-a-Lago last Monday, a move Trump has decried as politically motivated. 

After questions about the basis of the search, the Justice Department asked a judge to unseal the search warrant, but the agency has resisted releasing the associated affidavit, saying it could compromise the investigation.

Related documents revealed that the FBI recovered 11 sets of classified documents from Trump’s residence.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump’s declassification claim may offer limited defense 

Donald Trump’s claim he declassified the suite of documents seized by authorities after they searched his Florida home may provide only a limited defense for the former president, if the Justice Department decides to pursue what would be a historic case. 

Trump, like any U.S. president, would have wide-ranging powers to declassify documents — but not in sweeping fashion and not without igniting a chain of events that would document the request, according to legal experts interviewed by The Hill.   

The broad power also likely wouldn’t permit Trump to store tranches of presidential records in his post-presidential home. 

Trump has argued the documents removed from his home were “all declassified.” He later elaborated in a statement to Fox News that he had “a standing order” to declassify any documents.  

But experts say there should be traces of such a decision. 

Kel McClanahan, executive director of National Security Counselors, a nonprofit law firm specializing in national security law, said a presidential decision to classify material reverberates through an intelligence apparatus that carefully tracks documents and must then recategorize them appropriately.  

“When you declassify a document, it’s declassified everywhere,” he said. “The CIA’s copy is declassified, the NSA’s copy of declassified, the National Security Council’s copy is declassified.”  

“And so when you declassify a document, even with a wave of your hand, you have to say that to someone, so that they mark it or propagate a memo out to people that this document is now declassified,” added McClanahan. “And they would do that if there was literally anyone in the room when he said, ‘I am declassifying this document,’ they would have made a note of that.”   

McClanahan noted that no one in Trump’s orbit has yet pointed to anything in writing from Trump.   

“An oral order will not suffice unless somebody can prove that it existed,” he said.   

Trump has offered an evolving defense for why classified documents were found at his Mar-a-Lago estate.   

When the FBI first searched his home last Monday, he said he had been “working and cooperating with the relevant government agencies” ahead of the search.  

But reporting has since indicated that law enforcement previously subpoenaed documents Trump may have been keeping at his Florida residence and that one of his attorneys signed a sworn declaration in June indicating there were no additional classified documents on the property.  

Law enforcement after the search of Mar-a-Lago removed 11 sets of what appear to be classified documents from the property, according to a warrant unsealed on Friday.  

The warrant included the eye-popping revelation that Trump is under investigation for violating the Espionage Act, prompting the former president to say the information had all been declassified. 

He has also since claimed that other materials among those taken by the FBI were either protected by attorney client privilege or executive privilege.    

Declassification is usually done on a document-by-document basis, and even the more sweeping efforts to do so typically involve a specific program.   

And there are certain types of intelligence covered by other laws, like those dealing with nuclear programs where such power is held by the Department of Energy.  

Jamil Jaffer, who previously worked at the Justice Department’s National Security Division and as counsel to Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, said presidents also usually provide a rationale for declassification or demonstrate that by showing a public need to release the information.   

Trump didn’t appear to take these steps.  

“You didn’t execute a document that showed the declassification. You didn’t tell somebody you declassified them. You didn’t put them out in public. … They still have classified markings on the box, you didn’t cross it out and initial it. You didn’t appear to do anything, so what’s the proof that you declassified them?” Jaffer said.  

“What’s the evidence to suggest you declassified them other than your say so now after the fact now that you’re being investigated for having improperly retained classified materials?” he added.  

Experts said the Justice Department is likely now in communication with a host of intelligence agencies to see if they received word to declassify any of the information that was seized at Mar-a-Lago.  

But even if Trump did declassify documents, that isn’t a defense for several of the statues cited by the Justice Department.  

The Espionage Act doesn’t require mishandling classified information, just national defense information. 

It’s a detail that has led some to lobby for updating language they say is overly broad, but they’ve been met with resistance in Congress. 

“Many of Trump’s allies have led the charge to never change the Espionage Act,” McClanahan said.   

“And what is happening now is that the same statute that is used to go after people who leaked to the media, to go after the Reality Winners and the Chelsea Mannings of the world, regardless of what you think about them, this was what they were prosecuted under. And these guys had no problem with that whatsoever.”  

McClanahan suspects DOJ is eyeing a provision of the law that allows for prosecution of those who willfully retain or fail to deliver national defense information. 

But Mark Zaid, a national security law expert who was part of a team representing two of the whistleblowers familiar with Trump’s 2019 call to Ukraine President Volodomyr Zelensky, said it would set a dangerous precedent to pursue Espionage Act charges against Trump if he wasn’t in possession of important classified materials.  

“As a policy matter, I would really be concerned by the slippery slope that would be pursued if the Justice Department indicted a former president for possessing unclassified national defense information. That, I would think, would be a very, very bad idea,” he said.   

The other two statutes listed on the warrant similarly do not hinge on possessing classified materials and align with the Presidential Records Act — which carries no criminal penalties but states that presidential records are the property of the government, not the chief executive.   

One bars concealing, removing and mutilating government documents while the other prohibits similar actions when done “with the intent to impede, obstruct, or influence [an] investigation.”   

McClanahan said the last statute was likely implicated by “constantly telling people in response to subpoenas and searches and meetings, that he did not have any classified information.”  

There’s also room for possible charges under another statute not listed in the warrant that bars the “unauthorized removal and retention of classified documents.”  

“It’s the one that the people who have a particular interest in karma point out a lot because it’s the one that until 2018 was a misdemeanor that a lot of people would plead to get out of an espionage charge,” McClanahan said.  

The charge was upgraded from a misdemeanor when Republicans held majorities in Congress and Trump was in office.  

“So now it’s a felony, thanks to President Trump and his allies, that is now likely going to be aimed against him,” McClanahan said.   

Whether the Justice Department will move forward with charging Trump is another question entirely.  

Zaid said if anything leads to charges, it’s likely to be a pattern of obstructing officials’ investigation.

“The timeline in this case seems to show a deliberate or unbelievably gross incompetent level of mishandling of the classified information by the fact of multiple requests, multiple statements that ‘we’ve given you, the executive branch, everything we have,’ and then multiple examples of finding out that that’s not true,” he said.  

Still, he said the initial burden may fall on whoever helped Trump in collecting the documents and getting them transported and situated at Mar-a-Lago.  

“The question is, who are those people? Are they former White House people who had and maybe still have security clearances, and who knew of the existence of these documents at Mar-a-Lago? There may be a handful of other people whose liability is as great if not greater than Donald Trump, and they may be the low hanging fruit that the Justice Department should pursue to find out exactly the level of Donald Trump’s knowledge of these potential infractions,” Zaid said.  

“I think the low hanging fruit would be used, if the facts justify, to basically turn them against the godfather.”   

But moving forward is a major decision point, one made all the more difficult by claims from Trump that the investigation is nothing more than political persecution.   

“In a lot of ways, the Justice Department has put themselves in a pretty tough situation,” Jaffer said.   

“The accusations of politicization, the potential defenses that he has like the classification – there are a lot of reasons you wouldn’t pursue a prosecution like this. That being said, once you’ve made the decision to obtain a warrant, to get the warrant, to execute it, now you’re pretty far down the road. And if you have the evidence that a law was violated, then it’s hard not to bring the prosecution,” Jaffer said.   

Zaid said there is a case to be made that some of the language included in the Espionage Act was never meant to apply to the president directly. The law only refers to officers and employees of the executive branch.  

“It was never envisioned that it would be the president of the United States that would run afoul of these statutes. So there are some legal arguments that can be potentially made,” he said.  

Jaffer said courts also may be hesitant to weigh questions over how broad the president’s power is to declassify material if they feel it’s a political question best dealt with by Congress.  

“Will a court really look behind a president’s decision to declassify? If the president says, ‘I declassified these materials for the following three national security reasons,’ it seems unlikely that a court will question the merits of that decision, particularly given the historical deference courts generally give to the executive branch in national security,” he said.  

But McClanahan said DOJ’s hesitance seems squarely centered on Trump’s status as a former president.  

“The fact that they have not already indicted him is literally because he is former President Trump,” he argued. “If he were anyone other than a former president with a million-strong mob at his beck and call, he would be charged right now. And that is what the DOJ is thinking about. And that is what [Attorney General Merrick] Garland is thinking about.  

“If he were anyone else, we would not hesitate to arrest him.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

Politics aside, the unsealing of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant is a victory for the rule of law

News of the FBI search of former President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago property caught many by surprise. Never before had law enforcement searched the home of a former president for material related to a possible crime. In a nation enduring stark political division, the responses to the search have been predictably divergent.

On the one hand, some have celebrated the latest step towards the downfall of a polarizing figure. On the other hand, some have viewed the search as the latest step in a political witch hunt. For many of us on both sides of the divide, there were questions that needed answers, and those answers lay within the search warrant and the FBI’s affidavit (which is, as of writing, still sealed).

The search of a former president’s property is a political bombshell, to be sure. But politics aside, the unsealing of the Mar-a-Lago search warrant is a huge win for the rule of law. From the warrant itself to the receipt, many Americans are, for the first time, seeing what happens when law enforcement applies for a warrant, the warrant is issued and the warrant is executed. And it’s happening on the biggest possible stage.

We hear about warrants being executed in various criminal investigations, but rarely do those outside of the justice system have an opportunity to see what a warrant looks like, let alone get a glimpse of how the warrant process actually works. The unsealing of the warrant, and the accompanying receipt, presents the public with an opportunity to learn firsthand how the Fourth Amendment’s requirements for obtaining a warrant work in the real world.

The text of the Fourth Amendment sets forth clear rules for when a court may issue a warrant: “No Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

This narrow scope was the result of the framers’ rejection of the kind of general writs of assistance then in use, which served as non-expiring (except upon death of the king) general warrants allowing customs agents to search anywhere for smuggled goods. Requirements such as specificity and probable cause are now considered fundamental for issuing warrants in legal systems that value the rule of law.

The late Lord Tom Bingham, in his 2010 book “The Rule of Law,” wrote that one of the basic principles of the rule of law is that the law must be accessible as well as intelligible, clear and predictable. American laws are certainly accessible — they can be researched online at home, work or the local library, or in person at the local law library. And thanks to our large body of case law, outcomes are fairly predictable. Unfortunately, our laws are not always clear or intelligible to citizens who do not have a legal education. This is particularly true in areas of procedural law, which take place outside of the public eye during an open investigation.

The unsealing of the Mar-a-Lago warrant demonstrates how the procedural requirements of the Fourth Amendment are applied. Each step required by the Fourth Amendment – from probable cause to specificity of places to be searched and items sought – has been addressed in a clear and intelligible manner. It bears mentioning that warrant applications can be, and sometimes are, rejected by judges when probable cause is lacking.

Courts also can, and do, bar evidence taken from locations outside of the scope of the warrant. Given the high-profile nature of the targets of this investigation and the likelihood of public scrutiny, there is added pressure to get everything right. A side benefit is that the warrant and its supporting documents become an excellent example of what it looks like when things are done right.

When we put the politics aside, we are presented with a clear view of a justice system working as it is intended to. Bearing in mind that as recently as 2018, C-SPAN found that over half of Americans could not even name a Supreme Court justice, the opportunity to peel back the curtain and glimpse the inner workings of the justice system is an important civics lesson for us all. At the end of the day, regardless of the political fallout, this instance of transparency is a huge win for the rule of law.

Eliot T. Tracz is a faculty fellow at New England Law Boston, where he teaches property and writes about issues of Constitutional Law.

Source: TEST FEED1

Boston mayor seeks to ban fossil fuels in new buildings

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu (D) wants to ban the use of fossil fuels in new buildings.

Wu unveiled a plan on Tuesday that would allow Boston to take part in a pilot program in Massachusetts in which cities and towns will develop ordinances that restrict or prohibit new building construction or renovation projects from using fossil fuels.

“Boston must lead by taking every possible step for climate action,” Wu said in a statement. “We are eager to carry out the intent of this state legislation and maximize its benefit by including the Commonwealth’s largest city—Boston’s participation will help deliver healthy, energy efficient spaces that save our residents and businesses on utilities costs and create local green jobs that will fuel our economy for decades.”

In a news release, Wu said that she plans to file a home rule petition with the state’s legislature that will make Boston eligible to participate in the program run by the state’s Department of Energy Resources. 

The pilot program is part of a new climate bill signed into law by Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) last week. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Inflation Reduction Act: Sourcing materials and making batteries are challenging

With the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) — the most significant climate change policy passed in our country to date — engineers, like myself, are at the center of developing and deploying the clean energy technology in record time. Importantly, these technologies include the batteries for electric vehicles (EVs), a centerpiece of the legislation and long-time foundation of strategies to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions. The IRA lays out some tough — and dramatic — engineering challenges for EV batteries.

For example, scaling up battery production in the U.S. is a cornerstone of the IRA. In it, EVs receive a tax credit only if their batteries meet certain criteria. According to the bill, in just six short years, receiving a tax credit for an EV would require its entire battery to be manufactured domestically. Yes, the Tesla Gigafactory is a household name, and there are a handful of other large plants across the country. But families in China already are able to choose from more than 90 battery gigafactories to discuss around their kitchen tables. Europeans have about 20.

It is far easier to buy a battery made abroad. We can’t change this reality without engineers as the heroes in what will be a dramatic build out of battery manufacturing in the United States.  

Potentially even more challenging than building the facilities that assemble battery parts is acquiring all the materials they contain. Metals — including lithium, copper, manganese, nickel and cobalt — are a key part of what makes a battery work.

However, the U.S. is not a dominant producer of any of these metals. And, typically, countries that produce metals don’t manufacture battery components or batteries at all. A common example is Chile, which produces 25 percent of the world’s lithium, but no appreciable number of batteries. About 70 percent of our cobalt comes from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), and 15 to 20 percent of that is mined by hand. This cobalt is generally exported to China, where it is used in battery production. The social and environmental costs of cobalt mining in the DRC have been documented by many organizations, including Amnesty International and in my own research and are the subject of government efforts to improve conditions. 

Recognizing the supply chain risks that such an international supply chain entails, the IRA sets targets for the percentage of the value of critical materials in a battery that come in total from domestic mines recycling, or from countries with which the U.S. has a free-trade agreement. This target hits 80 percent in four years. Given that most batteries are assembled outside the U.S., the amount of U.S.-mined metals incorporated in batteries today is incredibly small. To increase this percentage so dramatically in the next four years, advances in recycling existing lithium-ion batteries is key.

Subject to intense research and development, this technology is very young and not operated yet on a large scale in the U.S. Previous research has estimated that accomplishing a target of about 8 percent lithium and 12 percent each of nickel and cobalt by 2030 would be possible. By mass, this is only about one-third of the critical materials in a battery that would be achieved in eight (not four) years. Again, engineers must come to the rescue to design and scale these processes.

Another route to advancing toward this target will be to increase domestic production, including through mining — although this would take more than four years to accomplish in a way that meets the targets in the IRA. Again, engineers would be at the forefront of developing and operating mines. However, there is a long history of environmental and social challenges associated with mines. 

News stories have addressed concerns with, for example, increasing lithium mining on Indigenous lands in the United States. If engineers construct or expand mines, they will need to work respectfully and responsibly with local communities, including Indigenous communities that have experienced terrible historical injustices over land rights.

We don’t want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles only to pollute culturally important lands that also offer ecosystem services like carbon storage. Scaling up battery production is a systems-level problem. We need the systems-level thinking of engineers — working closely and respectfully with communities — to get this right from the outset.

To be sure, many professions will support the realization of the IRA. But we should encourage every student to be a part of the excitement and consider an engineering career. Those of us at universities need to also do our part to provide an interdisciplinary education that extends beyond the engineering school to encompass social sciences, humanities and the arts. Such richly-trained engineers will be ready to responsibly develop and deploy the clean energy technologies we need to address climate change without causing harm to — and ideally even benefitting — the communities involved in its development and deployment.

Jennifer Dunn is an associate professor of chemical and biological engineering at Northwestern University and the co-director of Northwestern’s Center for Engineering Sustainability and Resilience.

Source: TEST FEED1

Nearly 2 million fewer students have enrolled in public school

Almost 2 million students stopped attending public schools between 2020 and 2021, enrollment data shows.  

In a recent poll from Education Next, district-operated schools lost 4 percent of their students during those two years with those children enrolling in other types of schooling.  

In the spring of 2020, 81 percent of schoolchildren in the United States were enrolled in district schools, according to parental response to the poll.  

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By November of that year, enrollment in district schools had plummeted to 72 percent, according to Education Next numbers.  

Education Next poll crafters acknowledged in a statement that that decline could stem from parents choosing to remove their children from district schools to charter or private schools, but the decline could also be linked to parents not knowing how to define their children’s school when learning was done mostly online.  

Last spring, district school enrollment bounced back up to 77 percent and enrollment has hovered at that rate since then, according to the publication’s most recent poll.  

That percentage drop means that almost 2 million students have left a traditional public school for either a charter or private school or to be homeschooled.  

Poll findings show that the three other schooling alternatives have seen bumps in enrollment numbers. In 2022, private school enrollment ticked up to 10 percent compared to 8 percent in the spring of 2020 and the number of U.S. children attending a charter school went up from 5 percent to 7 percent over that same period of time.  

More children appear to be taking their course work at home, the poll found. Over the past two years, the portion of the country’s students being homeschooled bumped up from 6 to 7 percent, which represents a doubling from 2016 numbers.  

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Source: TEST FEED1

Biden signs expansive health, climate bill into law

President Biden signed into law a sweeping bill to lower health care costs and address climate change on Tuesday, sealing a legislative victory more than a year in the making. 

The $740 billion bill was significantly slimmed down from the original $3.5 trillion package some envisioned last fall, but nevertheless represents an undeniable win for Biden and Democrats in Congress. It includes some of Biden’s key campaign promises and makes the largest investment in federal climate programs in history.

“With unwavering conviction, commitment, and patience, progress does come,” Biden said in the State Dining Room as he prepared to sign the legislation. “And when it does, like today, people’s lives are made better and the future becomes brighter and a nation can be transformed.”

Biden was introduced by House Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), who negotiated with Schumer to move the package forward, sat in the front row at the signing and was the only other senator in attendance. He received a round of applause when Schumer credited him with getting the legislation across the finish line.

Biden said he looked forward to signing the bill for 18 months and was flanked by lawmakers when he did so, handing the first pen dramatically off to Manchin. 

Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan, deputy national climate adviser Ali Zaidi and Reps. Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), among others, attended the event at the White House. 

The room gave a long standing ovation for Biden when he got to the podium. He wore a mask in the room when he wasn’t speaking because first lady Jill Biden tested positive for COVID-19 earlier on Tuesday. 

“Joe, I never had a doubt,” Biden said, referring to Manchin, to laughter from the room. 

The bill passed through party-line votes in the Senate and House in recent weeks; no Republicans voted in favor of the package.

By 2030, the law is expected to bring U.S. planet-warming emissions down to lower than they were in 2005 through many of its provisions to promote the deployment of clean energy. It also contains provisions that boost fossil fuels, which were included to secure the support of Manchin. 

The bill became tailored to focus on bringing down health care costs and addressing climate change throughout negotiations over the past year. It will allow Medicare to negotiate prices for some drugs and shore up health insurance subsidies, giving Democrats a victory over a pharmaceutical industry that has long opposed such measures.

“In this historic moment, Democrats sided with the American people and every single Republican in the congress sided with the special interests,” Biden told the room. 

The White House has pointed to the bill as a way to lower costs for American families during a period of high inflation, though some of the provisions of the bill that will ultimately lower prescription drug costs will take years to go into effect. 

Still, Democrats view the climate change provisions in particular as game-changing investments. 

“It will make the U.S. a global clean energy powerhouse and very likely we will look back on this as the start of a clean energy economic revolution in the same way we look back at the early 1990s as the IT revolution,” said Josh Freed, leader of the climate and energy program at centrist Democratic think tank Third Way. 

In introductory remarks, Clyburn declared that the bill would “lead to transformative change in this country.”

Schumer declared it the “boldest climate bill ever.”

“If the last two months could be summed up in a word, it would be persistence,” Schumer added.

Biden’s signing of the bill is expected to kick off a multistate tour to promote the legislation and other administration accomplishments, with less than three months until the November midterm elections. 

Biden, who is headed home to Wilmington, Del., on Tuesday night for the remainder of his summer vacation, is scheduled to attend a Democratic National Committee event in Maryland next Thursday. The president is also expected to host another event early next month to celebrate the passage of the bill. 

Through the end of August, Cabinet members like Vice President Harris, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and Labor Secretary Marty Walsh, are expected to take 35 trips to 23 states to discuss the benefits of the new law with the public. 

The bill would pay for climate and health measures by introducing new taxes on large corporations with the package’s tax plan involving a 15 percent minimum tax on the income that big companies report to shareholders.  The tax would exempt companies taking advantage of accelerated depreciation, a popular deduction that helps pay for capital investments, which was included to secure the support of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.).

The bill also places a 1 percent excise tax on stock buybacks. And it includes a boost to the IRS to go after high-income Americans who are paying less in taxes. The IRS will receive $80 billion to increase enforcement and another $15 million to fund a task force on determining how the IRS can deliver a “direct e-file tax return system.” 

Source: TEST FEED1

The US movement to make period products free is growing

More and more schools, states and localities across the country are moving to make period products free in an effort to end period poverty and the stigma it carries. 

Scotland caught global attention on Monday after legislators there passed a new law making all period products free — the first country in the world to do so. 

It was done in part to address period poverty, an issue that’s defined as a lack of access to menstrual products, hygiene facilities, waste management and education. It affects women around the world, including in the U.S., and can cause physical, mental and emotional challenges. 

“Proud of what we have achieved in Scotland. We are the first, but we won’t be the last,” said Monica Lennon, the lawmaker responsible for the new law. 

U.S. advocates praised Scotland’s new law, with Period, an Oregon-based nonprofit working to end period poverty, saying, “Scotland’s long fought for victory reminds us all that we can, and we will eradicate period poverty in our lifetimes,” on Twitter. 

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There’s been a growing movement to make period products free in the U.S., with Rep. Grace Meng (D-N.Y.) introducing the Menstrual Equity for All Act of 2021, which would distribute federal grant funds to states in order to help fund free menstrual products in schools, prisons and homeless shelters. 

Though the legislation has yet to be picked up by Congress, some states have moved forward with their own legislation. Hawaii has enacted a law that requires public schools to offer free period products to all students. 

The Alliance for Period Supplies, a nonprofit working to end period poverty, found there are 17 states and Washington, D.C. that currently have laws in place that make period products free for students while in school — including California, Oregon, Washington state, Illinois, Colorado and more. 

There are also a handful of states that give schools funding in order to provide free period products to students, but do not mandate they offer it. That includes Georgia, Missouri and North Carolina. 

Not having access to period products can be debilitating for many, as data from nonprofit Free the Tampon Foundation found 86 percent of people started their period unexpectedly in public without the supplies they needed. 

If and when a women were caught in public without period supplies they needed, 57 percent said they would feel embarrassed, 50 percent said they would feel annoyed and 43 percent would feel anxious and stressed. 

But even more serious, are the 16.9 million people who menstruate in the U.S. and who are also living in poverty. The Journal of Global Health Reports found that about two-thirds of those people are low-income women who could not afford to buy menstrual products in the past year — having to choose between food and menstrual products. 

Adding to that burden are taxes, as menstrual pads and tampons are not exempt from federal sales tax, despite advocates noting that Viagra, medication that treats erectile dysfunction, and Rogaine, hair regrowth treatment, are exempt. 

Instead, 13 states have moved to remove their sales tax on menstrual pads and tampons, but researchers have noted that does not always help lower-income individuals. 

Source: TEST FEED1