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Health Care – Monkeypox officially a public health emergency

Ever wondered which Hogwarts house your state would be sorted into? Well good news, someone made a map answering that exact question, and a lot of the U.S. is Slytherin. 

Today in health care, monkeypox was declared a public health emergency in the U.S., while the Senate prepares to move forward on its sweeping health and climate package this weekend

Welcome to Overnight Health Care, where we’re following the latest moves on policy and news affecting your health. For The Hill, we’re Peter Sullivan, Nathaniel Weixel and Joseph Choi. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here.

White House: Monkeypox a public health emergency 

The Biden administration on Thursday officially declared monkeypox a public health emergency, a move that’s aimed at freeing up emergency funding and improving distribution of vaccines and treatments. 

• “We are prepared to take our response to the next level in addressing this virus, and we urge every American to take monkeypox seriously and to take responsibility to help us tackle this virus,” Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said during a briefing. 

The announcement comes amid intense criticism that the Biden administration failed to recognize the severity of the outbreak, leading to shortages of vaccine doses and diagnostic tests even as demand has soared. 

The nation has already purchased most of the global supply of Jynneos, the only monkeypox vaccine licensed in the U.S., but much of it is stored frozen in bulk substance. It needs to undergo a process called “fill and finish” to put the vaccine into usable vials to be shipped and then administered. 

Where it helps: A public health emergency won’t ease the shortages of vaccines, but it could expedite the approval process for new treatments and provide more flexibility for federal agencies to respond to the outbreak. 

• “This public health emergency will allow us to explore additional strategies to get vaccines and treatments work quickly out to the impacted communities. And it will allow us to get more data from jurisdictions so we can effectively track and attack this outbreak,” said Robert Fenton, the administration’s newly-appointed national coordinator for the monkeypox response. 

Read more here. 

‘Paxlovid rebound’ raises questions 

President Biden testing positive for COVID-19 again days after completing a course of Paxlovid has raised the question of whether the length of the antiviral treatment should be reconsidered. 

Just days after he completed a five-day round of Pfizer’s COVID-19 antiviral treatment, Biden’s physician, Kevin O’Connor, said in a letter on Saturday that the president had tested positive once again. As of Wednesday, Biden is still testing positive for COVID-19. 

This phenomenon has come to be known as “Paxlovid rebound,” when a person tests positive for the coronavirus again even after initially testing negative following a round of treatment with the antiviral. 

Reasons to look into this: 

• Some experts have called for studies into extending Paxlovid treatments to be prioritized, as early research has suggested that Paxlovid rebound could occur due to insufficient exposure to the drug. Researchers from the University of California, San Diego School of Medicine said last month that the drug may not be reaching enough infected cells in the allotted time. 
• People who experience cases of antiviral rebound are still at risk of transmitting COVID-19 to other people. Michael Charness, a researcher from the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Boston, recently told CNN that he and his colleagues had observed at least two instances of people infecting others after their symptoms reoccurred. Both cases involved people who tested positive again after taking Paxlovid. 

“I’m actually still flabbergasted that we have not set up a clinical trial to figure this out. It’s an easy thing to do,” Robert Wachter, chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, told The Hill. 

“Wouldn’t cost that much to be able to accumulate enough patients in a week or two and follow them for a few weeks so we could have an answer,” Wachter said, adding that the data needed to potentially extend the length of a round of Paxlovid could have been collected already if trials had been started just a few months ago. 

Read more here. 

SENATE SETS UP FIRST VOTE SATURDAY ON SCHUMER-MANCHIN DEAL 

It’s looking like it will be a long weekend in the Senate.  

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) announced that the Senate will begin consideration of a $740 billion budget reconciliation package that would lower drug prices and tackle climate change on Saturday afternoon, setting up a weekend of around-the-clock votes. 

“For the information of Senators, the Senate will next convene on Saturday at noon. The next vote will be at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, on a motion to discharge a nomination. We expect to vote on the motion to proceed to the reconciliation legislation on Saturday afternoon,” Schumer announced on the floor.   

Next steps: If a majority of senators vote to proceed to the legislation, they will then debate for up to 20 hours before holding an open-ended series of votes, known as a vote-a-rama, before a final up-or-down vote, which is now expected Sunday or perhaps early Monday morning. 

The Sinema question: Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) is still negotiating to make changes to the legislation, according to people familiar with the discussion, but it appears Schumer is optimistic he can strike a deal with her before the package comes to final vote on the floor.   

Read more here. 

DESANTIS SUSPENDS STATE ATTORNEY 

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) suspended Hillsborough County State Attorney Andrew Warren on Thursday for “neglect of duty” after the prosecutor refused to enforce bans on abortion and transgender surgery. 

“When you flagrantly violate your oath of office, when you make yourself above the law, you have violated your duty, you have neglected your duty and you are displaying a lack of competence to be able to perform those duties,” DeSantis said at a news conference in the county sheriff’s office. 

“And so today we are suspending State Attorney Andrew Warren effective immediately.” 

Warren, a Democrat, was first elected in 2016, when he defeated the Republican incumbent, and has been an outspoken voice for criminal justice reform. 

DeSantis cited Warren’s signing of a letter saying that he would not enforce “prohibitions on sex change operations for minors” and another saying that he would not enforce “any laws related to protecting the right to life” as evidence that the state attorney had shirked his duty as a public prosecutor. 

“It’s not for him to put himself above that and say that he’s not going to enforce the laws,” DeSantis said, accusing Warren of acting like he had “veto power” over the state legislature. 

Read more here. 

Kansas allows abortion rights advocates to be optimistic

Kansas voters are giving abortion rights advocates and Democrats reason to be hopeful. When Tuesday night’s votes came in, it looked like they confirmed what the groups have been saying all along: Americans broadly support abortion rights. 

Nearly 60 percent of voters in the Sunflower State rejected a state constitutional amendment on Tuesday that would have given the state legislature more power to regulate access to abortion, marking the first time Americans were asked to weigh in on abortion rights after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. 

“In the first election since [the ruling] where abortion was front and center, the people of a state that hasn’t voted for a Democrat for President since 1964 emphatically endorsed a right to abortion. This should send shockwaves through politics at every level,” David Cohen, a law professor at Drexel University’s Thomas R. Kline School of Law, said in an email following the Kansas vote. 

Where to watch next: 

• In Kentucky, residents will be asked to weigh in on a state constitutional amendment that says, “Nothing in this Constitution shall be construed to secure or protect a right to abortion or require the funding of abortion.” 
• In Michigan, residents will vote on a ballot measure that would amend the state constitution, protecting the right to make choices on reproductive issues such as contraception and abortion. 
• Over in Montana, there’s also a ballot measure that would require that infants born following an abortion attempt be provided medical care. 

Read more here. 

WHAT WE’RE READING

• Patients seeking novel weight loss drugs find a ‘wild west’ of online prescribers (Stat)  
• How the 2022 midterms strategy could change after the Kansas abortion vote (NPR)  
• The Three COVID Developments I’m Still Holding Out Hope For (The Atlantic)

STATE BY STATE

• West Virginia Medicaid must cover gender-affirming surgeries, judge rules (Axios)  
• Indiana lawmakers vote to keep exceptions from abortion ban (Associated Press) 
• Whitmer to Supreme Court: Monday abortion rights ‘fire drill’ requires immediate action (Detroit News)  

THE HILL OP-ED

We need a national action plan to contain monkeypox now 

That’s it for today, thanks for reading. Check out The Hill’s Health Care page for the latest news and coverage. See you tomorrow.

VIEW FULL VERSION HERE

Source: TEST FEED1

Pentagon reminds top officials not to wipe phones after Jan. 6 data scrub

The Pentagon’s No. 2 official is reminding its employees to preserve the contents of their government phones following revelations that the texts for top Defense Department officials were not preserved and their communications on Jan. 6, 2021, were lost. 

In a memo sent to senior leaders on Wednesday, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks reminded officials that the retention of records as required by the Federal Records Act “is a solemn responsibility and legal obligation for all federal employees, civilian and military.”  

This memo “further directs that, effective immediately, all mobile device service providers in DoD will capture and save the data resident on DoD-provisioned mobile devices when devices are turned-in by users,” Hicks wrote. 

The Pentagon wiped the phones of former acting Defense Secretary Chris Miller, former Army Secretary Ryan McCarthy and former Pentagon chief of staff Kash Patel in the days after the attack on the Capitol and the end of former President Trump’s term. 

The government watchdog American Oversight first discovered the data gap after it sued for the texts following a public records request. 

The scrubbed records are significant as they could have shed more light on why the National Guard was delayed approval to go to the Capitol as it was under siege. 

Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) earlier this week called for an investigation as to how the communications were lost.  

“The disappearance of this critical information could jeopardize efforts to learn the full truth about Jan. 6,” Durbin said in a statement. “I don’t know whether the failure to preserve these critical government texts from Jan. 6 is the result of bad faith, stunning incompetence, or outdated records management policies, but we must get to the bottom of it.” 

In her memo, Hicks also directs the Pentagon’s chief information officer and general counsel to assess and report back in 30 days on existing Defense Department communication policy and procedures and any recommendations for improvement. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Hillicon Valley — Taiwan hit with another cyberattack

Tawain was hit with a second cyberattack this week, this time targeting its defense ministry. The latest attack follows Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit to the island on Tuesday. 

In other news, a spokesperson for Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said the top Democrat plans to call a key antitrust bill targeting tech giants to a floor vote — but stopped short of committing to a timeline.  

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. Someone forward you this newsletter? Subscribe here.

Cyberattack hits Taiwan after Pelosi visit

The website of Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense was hit with a cyberattack on Wednesday in the aftermath of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) visiting the island.  

Taiwan’s Military News Agency reported the ministry’s website went offline temporarily after being hit with a distributed denial-of-service attack, which disrupted the website with excessive traffic. 

The ministry said officials are continuing to strengthen monitoring for attacks as it works with other authorities to maintain information security.  

Taiwan’s presidential office was hit with a similar attack on Tuesday, the day that Pelosi visited, flouting stern warnings from China. The attack caused 200 times more than the normal weekday traffic, temporarily crashing the website. 

Read more here. 

Schumer plans to call antitrust bill for vote 

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) plans to call Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Chuck Grassley’s (R-Iowa) antitrust bill targeting tech giants to a floor vote, according to a spokesperson for the top Democrat. 

“Sen. Schumer is working with Sen. Klobuchar and other supporters to gather the needed votes and plans to bring it up for a vote,” the spokesperson said in a statement.  

The spokesperson, however, did not provide a timeline for the vote.  

Klobuchar told Politico, which first reported on the statement, that Schumer committed to a vote “in the fall” but said she didn’t have an exact date. 

Klobuchar and Grassley had been pushing for a floor vote on the bill, which aims to prevent tech giants from preferencing their own products and services over rivals’, before the Senate leaves for recess. 

The bill advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee earlier this year with bipartisan support. 

Read more here.  

SEMICONDUCTOR GROUPS PUSH FOR IMMIGRATION REFORM

Semiconductor giants are pushing for immigration reform that would allow more highly-skilled workers to remain in the U.S. after Congress passed a bill to strengthen domestic chip manufacturing. 

The semiconductor companies told congressional leaders the U.S. should reform regulations around green cards to keep more highly skilled workers, according to a copy of the letter reported by Punchbowl News Thursday. 

The companies argued that the U.S. should exempt eligible immigrants with doctorate and master’s degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) from annual green card country caps, as well as allow for the recapture of unused green cards to reduce the “massive backlog” of employer and family sponsored green card applicants. 

In addition to the green card reform, the companies said the U.S. should invest more in developing qualified U.S.-born STEM students and create more semiconductor-specific degree programs. 

Read more here. 

BITS & PIECES

An op-ed to chew on: To make US more cyber-resilient, government and business need far greater collaboration

Notable links from around the web: 

TikTok Moderators Are Being Trained Using Graphic Images Of Child Sexual Abuse (Forbes / Alexandra S. Levine) 

Perils of Preaching Nationalism Play Out on Chinese Social Media (The New York Times / Li Yuan) 

Video game giants see hundred million dollar dip in revenue amid recession fears (The Washington Post / Shannon Liao) 

One more thing: Missing texts draw new scrutiny

A second failure to sound the alarm on missing text messages is renewing scrutiny of Joseph Cuffari, the inspector general at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), who is facing a barrage of calls to step aside from his review of how the agency responded to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.   

Cuffari’s probes into Jan. 6 collided with an unusual roadblock: Text messages both at the Secret Service and for top Trump DHS officials could not be accounted for or were erased in the days after the deadly attack.   

But the inspector general waited months to alert DHS leadership or Congress — a possible violation of the law that has lawmakers calling for him to recuse himself from his investigation.   

Criticism of Cuffari, however, far predates the mystery around DHS’s text messages, stemming from a series of passed-over investigations and narrowed lines of inquiry.   

Read more here.  

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.

VIEW FULL VERSION HERE

Source: TEST FEED1

Defense & National Security – Pentagon delays missile test again

The Department of Defense has delayed a planned intercontinental ballistic missile test launch for the second time amid increased tensions with China over Taiwan.  

We’ll break down the second delay. Plus, we’ll get to know the Pentagon’s new press secretary — Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder.   

This is Defense & National Security, your nightly guide to the latest developments at the Pentagon, on Capitol Hill and beyond. For The Hill, I’m Jordan Williams. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here.

Pentagon delays test over China-Taiwan tensions 

The Pentagon for a second time will hold off on a planned intercontinental ballistic missile test launch amid increased tensions with China over Taiwan, the White House confirmed Thursday.  

‘Destabilizing’ actions around Taiwan: “A long-planned Minuteman III ICBM test, scheduled for this week, has been rescheduled for the near future,” John Kirby, the National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, told reporters at the White House daily briefing.   

“As China engages in destabilizing military exercises around Taiwan, the United State is demonstrating instead the behavior of a responsible nuclear power by reducing the risks of miscalculation and misperception.”   

The last delay: This is the second delay for the Minuteman III test. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in early March ordered a planned test to be pushed back to cool tensions with Russia over its attack on Ukraine. 

Prior to the latest delay, as was first reported by The Wall Street Journal, the Air Force was planning to fire an unarmed missile from Vandenberg Space Force Base, Calif., to land in the waters around the Marshall Islands, a former U.S. territory. 

Kirby later said the test was not canceled and could take place in “a couple of weeks” as “it’s not being postponed for an exorbitant amount of time.” He added it only was delayed “in light and in context of the tensions that we’re seeing right now, and they’re pretty escalated, . . . [the] temperature’s pretty high.” 

Pelosi’s trip to Taiwan: The decision comes as China earlier on Thursday fired missiles into the Taiwan Strait and deployed planes and warships in the area. The activity is part of Chinese wargames to last through Sunday in response to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) visit to the island earlier this week.   

• The trip sparked Beijing’s rage, as it views the independent island as its territory under its “One China” policy.   
• The U.S., meanwhile, accepts the One China policy but has pursued strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan, committing to aiding the island in defending itself against Beijing. 

About the Minuteman III: Minuteman III ICBMs, located in underground silos in five Western states, are tested several times a year and can be ready to launch in minutes should the president order it.  

Biden slams Griner’s nine-year sentence

President Biden on Thursday called on Russia to release WNBA star Brittney Griner immediately, condemning a newly announced nine-year prison sentence for Griner as “unacceptable.” 

“Today, American citizen Brittney Griner received a prison sentence that is one more reminder of what the world already knew: Russia is wrongfully detaining Brittney,” Biden said in a statement. “It’s unacceptable, and I call on Russia to release her immediately so she can be with her wife, loved ones, friends, and teammates.” 

Biden said his administration would continue its efforts to bring Griner and Paul Whelan, another American detained in Russia, back to the United States “as soon as possible.” White House officials have said they are in regular contact with Griner’s family. 

A judge in Russia on Thursday sentenced Griner to nine years in prison on charges that she illegally brought drugs into the country. 

Read more here.  

Pentagon names Patrick Ryder new press secretary

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Thursday announced Air Force Brig. Gen. Patrick Ryder will be the Pentagon’s next press secretary, the first uniformed officer to fill the position since 2015.  

Ryder, the current Air Force public affairs director, steps into the role following the departure of John Kirby, who left the Defense Department in May join the White House as National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications. 

About Ryder: Ryder is no stranger to the podium, as he served as head spokesman for the Joint Chiefs of Staff from 2017 to 2019.  

He also worked for Austin from 2013 to 2016 as the top spokesman at U.S. Central Command when Austin was commander. 

An unusual choice: Austin’s choice to have a uniformed Pentagon spokesperson, first reported by CNN, is unusual given that service members are meant to be apolitical.   

The last uniformed officer in the role was then-Rear Adm. Kirby, who was appointed by then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel in 2013.    

The following Defense Secretary, Ash Carter, replaced Kirby with former journalist Peter Cook when he entered the Pentagon in 2015.  

Next steps: Austin said Ryder will spend the next few weeks closing out his Air Force and Space Force responsibilities before assuming his new role later this month.   

Read the full story here.

WHAT WE’RE READING

• Five ways China appears to be retaliating against Taiwan over Pelosi visit 
• Service member charged in connection with explosion at Syrian base 
• Taiwan defense ministry hit by cyberattacks in Pelosi aftermath  
• Missing Jan. 6 texts add to scrutiny surrounding DHS watchdog 
• Zelensky says Russia wouldn’t be deploying reserve troops if it wanted to negotiate 
• DOJ sues Navarro for White House emails accuses him of ‘wrongfully retaining them’  

That’s it for today! Check out The Hill’s Defense and National Security pages for the latest coverage. See you tomorrow!

VIEW FULL VERSION HERE

Source: TEST FEED1

We need a national action plan to contain monkeypox now

On July 23, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared monkeypox a global health emergency, and the United States is currently the world’s epicenter, with more than 6,600 cases across 48 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. And that is likely a significant undercount due to sporadic testing and underreporting. Most monkeypox cases are among men who have sex with men, but women and children have the disease as well. If we wait much longer to take urgent action, our country will be battling two pathogens novel to America — COVID-19 and monkeypox — for decades to come, severely straining the U.S. health system.

We need a national action plan now.

At long last, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra today declared monkeypox a national emergency. Such a declaration does not supplant the role of federal agencies or state health departments, but rather can help procure and marshal resources to effectively fight the disease. Monkeypox is a textbook case for an emergency declaration under Section 319 of the Public Health Service Act. Section 319 empowers HHS to make grants, enhance telemedicine, enter contracts, evaluate treatments, and unleash the nation’s public health emergency fund — all crucial for the resources, powers and flexibility needed to fight monkeypox.

Why did we wait so long, well after the WHO, California, Illinois and major cities like New York have sounded a public health alert? There are no downsides to declaring a public health emergency. There is no political opposition, and any legal challenges would be summarily dismissed.

Our flawed response thus far is due in no small measure to a fragmented public health system that lacks coordination and technological innovation. It is impossible to fight infectious disease outbreaks without essential data and effective communication about the disease, but that is exactly what is happening now. We need to collect national data that is accurate and disaggregated by age, gender, race/ethnicity and risk profile. It is unacceptable that the U.S. is currently unable to provide accurate assessments of key scientific factors needed to track and respond to monkeypox.

Think back over the last two years of COVID-19. We got our data on aerosolized spread, masks and vaccine and booster effectiveness from national health systems like those in the United Kingdom, Israel and South Africa. As the disease emerged, the CDC was late or missing in action regarding key data. The same thing is happening with monkeypox.

Since data drives policy, we must develop novel approaches to collecting this critical information in the absence of a seamless, standardized system of federal/state/local reporting. Currently, the CDC relies on state, tribal and local health departments for data, and there is no law that requires states and localities to share this vital information with the agency under our current system. The CDC recently designated monkeypox a nationally notifiable condition, but that still requires state cooperation.

Since 1992, in what is known as the “anti-commandeering” doctrine, the Supreme Court has ruled that the Tenth Amendment prohibits the federal government from forcing states to comply with federal dictates. Given constitutional barriers, novel 21^st century data collection methods are urgently needed. A modern data ecosystem with innovative approaches should be established for monkeypox and other diseases so that critical data can be collected in real time, trends monitored efficiently, and forecasting models created.

Such a system could be built from signing long-term data use agreements with states and providing them with technical assistance and support. And while the CDC can’t compel states to share data, it could incentivize them by offering public health funding that is conditioned on their sharing this information. Data could also be gathered from federal sources such as Medicaid, Medicare and the Department of Veterans Affairs, open-source information like social media, and large hospital systems. Additionally, wastewater surveillance has proven highly effective in monitoring COVID-19 infection trends and should now be employed to measure monkeypox in communities across the country.

The reason we are so badly undercounting monkeypox cases is an inadequate testing infrastructure. While U.S. testing capacities have recently improved, there’s still much more to be done. With private laboratories now processing tests, U.S. capacity reached 80,000 tests last week, up from 6,000 tests a week at the beginning of the outbreak. However, the cost of tests is too high and getting a test result can be onerous. We need to make testing inexpensive and easy, including the development and distribution of at-home test kits if possible.

Finally, and most importantly, we must urgently increase supplies of, and equitable access to, treatment and vaccines. Although no therapies are currently authorized specifically for monkeypox, the federal government has medications in the national stockpile including over 1.7 million courses of tecovirimat, an antiviral that is FDA approved for smallpox. While the European Medicines Agency has authorized it for treating monkeypox, the drug is available in America only through an Expanded Access IND research protocol. That is far too laborious. By the end of June, only 300 courses of tecovirimat had been distributed from the stockpile. And while the FDA and CDC recently reduced the need to complete over 100 pages of paperwork to 20 pages, the agencies must go much further. Clinical trials are also needed to determine whether the drug can prevent disease if given as post-exposure prophylaxis.

Supplies of the FDA-authorized Jynneos monkeypox two-dose vaccine also remain under strain as demand skyrockets, leading to long lines at clinics and advocacy protests. The vaccine can be used for pre- and post-exposure prophylaxis. A decade ago there were 20 million doses of this vaccine in the national stockpile but they have expired, so there were just 2,400 usable doses available as the monkeypox outbreak emerged in America in May. While the government has purchased several million new vaccine doses, they will not be available until later this year and into 2023.

Currently, the Danish-based biotechnology company Bavarian Nordic is the sole manufacturer of the monkeypox vaccines needed for Americans and the entire world. Since the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority, an HHS agency, has contributed more than $1 billion as of 2014, with an estimated $2 billion total to date, in order to develop and produce this vaccine, it should rapidly determine whether this one company has adequate facilities in Denmark to produce enough vaccine now for all those who need it. A declared public health emergency enables the president to require or incentivize this company to contract with other vaccine manufacturers to help produce more vaccine at scale. The Defense Production Act could also help ramp up badly needed manufacturing capacity.

Mark Twain once said, “History never repeats itself, but it does often rhyme.” Let’s apply the lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that there’s an innovative, effective action plan to contain monkeypox before it becomes endemic in America and worldwide.

Susan J. Blumenthal, MD, MPA, a retired rear admiral and former U.S. assistant surgeon general, is senior medical adviser at amfAR, The Foundation for AIDS Research, a senior fellow in health policy at New America, a clinical professor at Georgetown University School of Medicine and a visiting professor at the MIT Media Lab.

Lawrence O. Gostin, JD, is professor of Global Health Law at Georgetown University, where he directs the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law. He is also director of the WHO Center of Global Health Law.

The authors wish to thank Emily Stark, a research associate at New America and an entering first-year law student at Boston College, for her contributions to this article.

Source: TEST FEED1

Democratic lawmakers introduce bill to make reproductive health care more accessible to women with disabilities

Democratic lawmakers introduced legislation on Thursday to assist Americans with disabilities seeking reproductive health services, hoping to reduce the barriers they may face after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe V. Wade and the constitutional right to abortion.

U.S. Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.) announced the Reproductive Health Care Accessibility Act in a press release, explaining the bill would authorize the Department of Health and Human Services to conduct a study to survey the landscape of reproductive health services for the mentally and physically disabled.

The bill would also fund grants for training and education programs for healthcare professionals who provide reproductive care for the disabled; pour additional grant funding into programs aimed at recruiting and educating people with disabilities in the reproductive healthcare field; and create a new technical assistance center to assist with related educational needs for the disabled.

Duckworth, who lost her legs and partial use of her right arm in Iraq in 2004, said the bill would ensure 61 million disabled American women “are not left behind in getting the care we need, when we need it.”

“For too long, Americans with disabilities have faced persistent barriers to healthcare services, equipment and providers,” the senator said in a statement. “With right-wing efforts underway to go even further to undermine these rights in the wake of the overturning of Roe, many are rightfully worried about having an even harder time accessing the reproductive care they need.”

The Supreme Court’s decision to overturn the constitutional right to abortion cleared the way for about half of all states to ban or severely restrict abortion access.

The senators estimate that because of that ruling, one in four adults with a disability will face barriers to contraception counseling and prenatal care in a society where they already face consistent obstacles.

While the legislation is co-sponsored by several other Democratic senators and has the backing of more than a dozen disability rights groups and reproductive rights organizations, abortion access legislation is unlikely to pass in the evenly divided Senate, where 60 votes are needed to overcome a filibuster.

Murray, however, said “every single American deserves to have control over their own body, life, and future.”

“But people with disabilities have long faced discrimination and truly unacceptable roadblocks to getting the reproductive care they need—and Republicans’ nonstop attacks on our rights have made matters so much worse,” the senator said in a statement.

Source: TEST FEED1

Equilibrium/Sustainability — Athletes consider cricket's sustainability

The game of cricket has weathered such a hot spring and summer that athletes are questioning the long-term sustainability of the world’s second-most popular sport.  

Cricket, trailing only soccer in global fandom, is particularly beloved in some of the places most vulnerable to extreme weather events, such as India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, South Africa and the West Indies, The New York Times reported.   

And nations like England and Australia, which also have sizable cricket followings, have been experiencing record heat waves, according to the Times.   

Of all major outdoor sports that require fields or pitches, the game of “cricket will be hardest hit by climate change,” according to a 2018 U.K. climate report.  

Heat and rain can both jeopardize cricket play, with matches sometimes lasting up to five days, according to the Times. Even single-day matches can persist through “blistering conditions for seven hours or more,” the Times reported.  

Unlike other sports that allow athletes to wear shorts and other light clothing, cricket players must wear pads, gloves and a helmet despite high humidity and a lack of shade, according to the Times.   

While Australia has enacted heat guidelines for cricket, no global policy exists for playing in extreme weather. 

“Action needs to be taken for us to manage this situation,” Daren Ganga, a former West Indies captain who studies the issue, told the Times.  

“I think we’ve gone beyond the tipping point in some areas,” he added. “We still have the opportunity to pull things back in other areas.” 

Welcome to Equilibrium, a newsletter that tracks the growing global battle over the future of sustainability. We’re Saul Elbein and Sharon Udasin. Send us tips and feedback. A friend forward this newsletter to you? Subscribe here.

Today we’ll start with the volcanic eruption just miles away from a mid-Atlantic travel hub, followed by a look at why the climate deal could slow — not speed — electric vehicle adoption. Then we’ll explore a groundbreaking lawsuit that charges a major gas utility with making the fuel look too good. 

Lava flows near Iceland’s Reykjavik airport

A giant volcano began erupting in Iceland on Wednesday just 10 miles from Keflavik International Airport, raising concerns for travelers who frequent the global hub, The Washington Post reported. 

International thoroughfare: As of Thursday morning, the airport remained open and operational, despite the eruption.  

• Keflavik International Airport, located about 30 miles southwest of Reykjavik, hosts a long list of global departures and arrivals.  
• Direct flights come to and from a variety of European cities, as well as Boston; Minneapolis; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; New York; Seattle; Denver; Portland, Ore.; and Raleigh, N.C. 

No disruptions yet: Iceland’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs confirmed that there are still no aviation disruptions and “international flight corridors remain open.”  

What caused the eruption? Lava started flowing from a ground fissure around the Fagradalsfjall volcano on Wednesday afternoon local time, according to the Foreign Affairs Ministry.  

• The eruption occurred after several days of “intense seismic activity” and poses little threat to populated areas or critical infrastructure. 
• Air pollution could occur due to gas release, so the ministry advised people to avoid the area.   

Are people staying away? Not really. Despite warnings from the Icelandic Meteorological Office, many people ventured near Fagradalsfjall to take photos with their children and fly drones, according to the Post.  

“It’s just crazy,” Icelandic photographer Gunnar Freyr told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) after coming to watch the eruption. 

“I thought the eruption was going to happen maybe like in a few weeks, and now it’s here and it is so beautiful,” Freyr added.  

‘A dancing fire’: Valur Grettisson, editor in chief at The Reykjavik Grapevine magazine, told ABC that he was “mesmerized” by the eruption. 

While Iceland tends to get volcanic activity every four to five years, Grettisson stressed that this event was “different” — describing the eruption as “a dancing fire.” 

Climate deal could hinder electric vehicle adoption

A push by Democrats to increase the number of electric vehicles (EVs) on the road could be hampered by certain provisions included in last week’s climate and tax deal between Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), our colleague Rachel Frazin reported for The Hill.  

What provisions? At issue are certain requirements for EV tax credit eligibility. 

Some more specifics: For car buyers to get the full $7,500 credit with the purchase of a new EV, 40 percent of the minerals in that vehicle’s batteries will need to be extracted or refined from countries that have free trade agreements with the U.S., Frazin reported.  

• That requirement will increase to 50 percent in 2024 and 80 percent in 2027.
    
• A percentage of the car’s battery components also must be manufactured in North America.  

Will meeting such guidelines be realistic? Industry experts told Frazin that these provisions could be difficult to meet and might therefore reduce EV adoption in the short term.  

The bill as drafted could mean “that a significant number of consumers will not be able to take advantage of this credit in the early years when it is needed the most,” John Bozzella, of the Alliance for Automotive Innovation, said in a statement.  

Distancing the industry from China: Today, the majority of processing for battery minerals — such as lithium, nickel and cobalt — occurs in China, The Wall Street Journal reported, citing the firm Benchmark Mineral Intelligence.  

This means that most EVs currently on the market would fail to meet the new EV tax credit standards, according to the Journal.  

With which mineral producers does the U.S. have free trade agreements? The U.S. has agreements with some mineral producers, such as Australia and Chile.  

But the country has no such deals with other key producers like China, Russia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Frazin reported.  

Obstacle to adoption: Morgan Bazilian, a public policy professor at the Colorado School of Mines, told Frazin that the percentages and years listed in the tax credit provisions “are very high and very soon.” 

• “Will those targets become a hindrance or an obstacle to the adoption of electric vehicles with those targets?” Bazilian asked.  
• “Yes, if they are adhered to precisely and exactly,” he said. 

Utility sued for ‘greenwashing’ gas

Two environmental groups are suing the District of Columbia’s main gas utility for “greenwashing” —  deceptive practices around its environmental impacts. 

Cause of action: The suit against Washington Gas accuses the company of “misleading” customers by billing natural gas as environmentally beneficial, according to a statement from the Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), which filed the case. 

PIRG says this is the first lawsuit targeting a utility for its claims around gas.  

What’s in a name? The fuel marketed as natural gas is overwhelmingly composed of methane — a notorious climate pollutant, campaign director Matt Casale said in a statement.

• “Washington Gas is greenwashing methane gas in its materials,” Casale said.
    
• In doing so, he added, the utility was misleading D.C. residents “about the environmental and health impacts of the products and services they use – including where they get their energy.” 

Washington Gas did not respond with comment by press time. 

Better than electric? Washington Gas press materials refer to gas as “clean” — while making the case that consumers who use it release fewer planet-warming fossil fuel emissions than those who cook and heat with electricity.

• But nearly half of global warming to date has come from methane  — which is the primary component of natural gas, a Climate Policy Initiative study found. 
• Every escaped molecule of methane heats the planet dozens of times faster than equivalent volumes of carbon dioxide, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. 

But new-model electric appliances — from heat pumps to induction cooktops — can be many times more efficient than gas-powered, according to a separate PIRG study.  

Nationwide campaign: Gas companies around the country market the fuel as a climate solution, according to a PIRG fact sheet.

• Philadelphia Gas Works, for example, markets the fuel as “the most affordable and sustainable energy choice for your business heating, water heating and processing needs.” 
• And the Texas Gas Service touts the fuel as “Eco Friendly.

Breach of obligation? “Companies are legally obliged to be honest with the public, including about how their businesses may impact the environment and safety of consumers,” said ClientEarth lawyer Tyler Highful. 

“We cannot underestimate the real world impact energy company greenwashing has on the pace of change,” Highful added. 

As profits rise, oil companies still reluctant to drill 

Although oil company profits soared along with prices in the second quarter of 2022, companies aren’t actually drilling more. 

Instead, they’re using the money to keep their stock prices up — which has some leading Democrats asking questions.  

Buying back: Global fossil fuel producers are overwhelmingly choosing not to reinvest their profits in producing more, Canada’s Financial Post reported on Thursday.

• Companies that extracted oil from the country’s polluting tar sands secured billions in profit — and used it to bid up their own share prices.
   
• In contrast to the drill-baby-drill 2010s, investors are demanding oil companies prioritize “value over volume,” S&P Global analyst Kevin Birn said.

A global trend: The West’s biggest oil companies are set to return $30 billion to investors this quarter, Reuters reported. 

• That’s about half of the $60 billion in profits they brought in — but despite the money, the firms are tightening their belts.  
• “Given all the uncertainty in the world, now is not the time to lose discipline,” BP CEO Bernard Looney told Reuters, even as he noted the company had realized its biggest profits in 14 years.

Texas-based Occidental, meanwhile, is using its profits to bring its $21 billion in debt down to $15 billion, Reuters reported. 

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres labeled such profits “immoral” in a Wednesday statement — calling on governments to “tax these excessive profits, and use the funds raised to support the most vulnerable people through these difficult times.”  

Asking questions: The bumper profits amid soaring gas prices had one powerful congressional Democrat demanding answers, our colleague Rachel Frozen reported for The Hill. 

• House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Frank Pallone Jr. (D-N.J.) demanded that the country’s four largest oil companies explain why they aren’t reinvesting profits to bring down prices. 
• Pallone said his committee is also “investigating what oil companies could and should be doing to help bring down gas prices.” 

But consistently high gasoline prices may be better for encouraging the energy transition to renewables than a production increases many Democrats are calling for — which could dissuade investment in renewables, Reuters reported. 

Thirsty Thursday

“Mud-bergs’”rise from the shrinking Colorado River, a look at whether drought causes war and Tuscan farmers struggle to save grapes and olives amid with little rain.  

Drought leaves Colorado River stretch in uncharted ‘mud-berg’ territory 

• As the Lake Powell reservoir recedes to historic lows, a stretch of the Colorado River is growing “craggy, gnarled mud formations” that locals describe as “mud-bergs,” according to local NPR affiliate KUNC. “The mud-bergs that we see defining and changing the river corridor,” river runner Mike DeHoff told KUNC. “And that’s a terra incognita for me.” 

Uncovering whether drought causes political unrest 

• University of Nebraska scientists just received a million dollars to verify something that has long been suspected: a link between climate change, drought and social conflict, Omaha-based station KETV reported. “There’s a real gap. I think this project begins to address that gap,” Mark Svoboda of the university’s National Drought Mitigation Center told KETV. 

Tuscan farmers fight to save grape, olive harvest  

• Grape and olive farmers in Tuscany — at the heart of one of Italy’s most iconic wine and oil producing regions — are racing to adapt their operations to face the country’s new drought conditions before the year’s harvest is destroyed, Reuters reported. The drought came at the “crucial time during the transition from [olive] flower to fruit,” the head of one cooperative told Reuters. 

Please visit The Hill’s Sustainability section online for the web version of this newsletter and more stories. We’ll see you tomorrow.

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NotedDC — Reconciliation stands between Senate and recess

It’s going to be a long weekend for the Senate — potentially a long next week, as well — as Democrats delay August recess in an attempt to pass their long-stalled tax reform and climate bill. 

And yes, before you read any further, they’re still waiting on Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) to say whether she’ll support the package. 

Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said on the floor Thursday that Democrats “will make good on our word to pass the Inflation Reduction Act” even if that requires “late nights and extended debates.”  

His optimism comes after Sinema reportedly offered changes to the bill on Wednesday, requesting Democrats nix the provision to close the carried interest tax loophole, which she opposed previously. However, she still did not commit to supporting it. 

Our colleague Alexander Bolton writes that Schumer intends to go full steam ahead on a vote to move the bill to the floor this Saturday, signaling that Sinema will at least vote to debate it, which is expected to begin Sunday or Monday.

And a warning: the phrase “vote-a-rama” will be used a lot. 

Here’s what to expect, per our colleague Aris Folley: 

• What it is: “[It is] an often grueling, hours-long session in which senators can offer a series of amendments for a chance to influence legislation before senators vote on the overall bill.”
• How Republicans will likely use it: “[They] see vote-a-rama as an opportunity to offer potential last-minute changes to the bill’s text and line up tough votes for their colleagues ahead of the 2022 November midterms.”
• Lawmakers just want to go home: “I’ve been through many of them, and they’re largely meaningless,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) told The Hill. “People know what the result is. Nobody’s paying a lot of attention to it.”

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. 

📨 Encourage your friends to sign up here: thehill.com/noted.

Community mourns Rep. Walorski and her staffers 

A community vigil in honor of Rep. Jackie Walorski (R-Ind.) and staffers Emma Thomson and Zach Potts will take place at 8 p.m. Thursday at Jimtown High School in Elkhart, Ind. 

It follows a separate gathering on Capitol Hill Wednesday night that drew more than 100 people. 

All three died in a car crash in Indiana on Wednesday. 

Walorski, 58, is the third member of Congress to die this year. But it’s much more common for members to die of natural causes or known diseases. Walorki’s deadly crash marks the first time a House member died in such a way in nearly four decades.  

Authorities revised the account of the accident on Thursday, confirming that it was the SUV driven by Potts that crossed into the oncoming lane of traffic for unknown reasons. A driver in a separate vehicle also died.  

Senate Chaplain Barry Black opened Thursday’s session with a prayer for the trio. The House is not in session this week. 

“As we mourn the deaths of Congresswoman Jackie Walorksi and her two staffers Zachery and Emma, comfort our hearts,” Black prayed. 

It was just one in a long stream of tributes as the Capitol copes with the tragic news. 

Walorski had been representing Indiana’s 2nd Congressional District for the past decade, after a stint in the state’s legislature. 

Tributes from Hill staffers and others continue to stream in on social media, with fond memories and sadness over the three lives lost. 

“Emma Thomson was more than just a staffer. She was a talented public servant, ambitious professional, kindhearted soul, exemplar Christian woman, and hilarious friend. I was and am always honored to call her my best friend,” entrepreneur Kaitlin Fritz wrote on Twitter. 

Thomson was 28. 

Ben Mullany, communications director for Rep. John Joyce (R-Pa.), remembered working with Thomson in Joyce’s office before she took on her role in Walorski’s.  

“Apart from being a helluva staffer, Emma Thomson would go out of her way to be kind to everyone she met,” he wrote on Twitter. 

Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) noted that Thomson also worked on his 2016 presidential campaign. 

“She was a smart [and] talented communicator and an amazing young woman,” Rubio said on Twitter. 

Alex Burgos said he met Thomson while working on the Rubio campaign. 

“She was the kindest & most hard-working colleague, always wanting to learn, beloved by all. It’s no surprise her career was blossoming successfully,” he wrote. 

Ben Williamson, a former aide to ex-Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) also shared his memories of her. 

“[She] was an office neighbor of ours on the Hill for years and one of the absolute nicest people on earth. Her loss is deeply tragic.” 

Meanwhile, Potts, 27, who was chair of the St. Joseph County GOP in Indiana, was remembered as a dedicated strategist. 

“Organizational genius. Tech wizard. Wise beyond his years, Zach took a thankless job and shone brightly,” Judge Mark Telloyan wrote. 

MISSING TEXTS RAISE NEW QUESTIONS ABOUT JAN. 6

Government officials are raising new questions about whether federal agencies properly responded to the Jan. 6, 2021 Capitol riot, complicating ongoing investigations and probes. 

The Department of Defense (DOD) is the latest agency to face scrutiny after a watchdog organization discovered it wiped top departing officials’ phones at the end of the Trump administration, including texts leading up to and on the day of the attack. 

Our colleague Rebecca Beitsch is keeping track for you: That’s now three rounds of missing text messages from different agencies.  

The dominoes began to fall in July when Inspector General Joseph Cuffari notified Congress that the Secret Service had erased texts from Jan. 5 and 6. Another watchdog group then found out that text messages of Trump-era Homeland Security officials can also not be located. 

Cuffari doesn’t look good right now, Beitsch writes. It was his job to sound the alarm on the missing text messages as soon as he knew about them, but instead he waited months while simultaneously pursuing an investigation into the Jan. 6 riot. 

Why it matters: “There are multiple provisions in the Inspectors General Act that require notifying agency heads or Congress about ‘particularly serious or flagrant problems,’ in some cases within seven days,” Beitsch says. “That also includes using semiannual reports to note “any attempt by the establishment to interfere with the independence of the office.”   

Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) is now pushing the Office of Inspector General to investigate the DOD’s missing text messages, after he penned a letter to Attorney General Merrick Garland to investigate the ones missing from the Secret Service and Homeland Security officials. 

This complicates things … a lot: As Beitsch notes, the missing text messages could shine a light on why the National Guard was delayed in getting to the Capitol and possibly corroborate, or go against, former White House aide Cassidy Hutchinson’s bombshell testimony. 

Running out of time: It could also throw the Jan. 6 House committee’s timeline for a loop, as they are preparing to send out an initial report this fall. 

Is Carolyn Maloney saying what Dems are thinking?

“I apologize. I want you to run. I happen to think you won’t be running, but when you run or if you run, I will be there 100 percent.” 

That’s how Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) apologized to President Biden on Thursday, appearing on CNN, for saying during a debate this week that she didn’t believe he would run for a second term.  

“You are a great president,” Maloney continued. “And thank you for everything you’ve done for my state and all the states and all the cities in America. Thank you, Mr. President.” 

The key phrase “I happen to think you won’t be running” still signals what our colleagues have been writing about for weeks: Some Democrats silently don’t want Biden to run again.

Just last week, our colleague Amie Parnes reported that Biden’s allies are becoming more disillusioned with the White House’s lack of political outreach and engagement, feeling kept out of the loop. 

One of Maloney’s primary opponents, Suraj Patel, a former Obama administration staffer, told NotedDC that her words are not helpful to the party when they are finally riding a wave of success in passing key pieces of legislation ahead of a tough battle against Republicans in November.

“I don’t even think that was an apology,” Patel told NotedDC on Thursday. “She has now given [Republicans] ammunition that they will be running on television commercials to harm the president’s reelection chances, let alone our chances during midterms.” 

Other congressional Democrats have avoided the question instead of outrightly answering it like Maloney did:  

• “I’m not getting into 2022 or 2024,” Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) told George Stephanopoulos Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.”
• “We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said Sunday on CNN. 

Read more from our colleague Lexi Lonas about who is dodging 2024 questions.

PRIMARIES SHOW REPUBLICANS LINING UP BEHIND TRUMP

AT LEAST FOR NOW, the Republican Party in large part is still publicly unified around former President Trump, echoing his rhetoric as they attempt to flip seats red in November.

Our colleague Brett Samuels writes that talk of Trump’s “loosening grip on the GOP may be overstated” after Tuesday’s primaries, when a slew of his endorsed candidates pulled out victories. 

One of Trump’s biggest recent victories came when Rep. Peter Meijer (Mich.), one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump in 2021, lost to his endorsed candidate, John Gibbs. 

“I would rather lose office with my character intact than stay reelected having made sacrifices of the soul,” Meijer said on Thursday.  

Republicans whose primaries are coming up are now doubling down on denying the results of the 2020 presidential election, including House candidate Harriet Hageman, who is looking to unseat Republican Rep. Liz Cheney (Wyo.), one of Trump’s top foes. 

“The election was rigged,” Hageman said for the first time on Wednesday. 

What we’re watching: Trump will speak at the Conservative Political Action Conference on Saturday, alongside others including Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Rick Scott (R-Fla.), Texas Gov. Greg Abbott (R) and former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon. It is likely Republicans at CPAC will double down on their attacks against the Jan. 6 investigations. 

Keep reading: Why Democrats and some Republicans are sounding the alarms that some election deniers actually could rack up some wins this November, per our colleague Julia Manchester. 

Happy birthday, Obama 

Former President Obama turned 61 on Thursday, and former first lady Michelle Obama kept up with her tradition of posting a throwback for her “honey.” 

This year, she posted a picture of a (much) younger Obama looking into the distance.  

Read more from The Hill’s Judy Kurtz.

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

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County clerk Tina Peters loses primary recount after raising $250,000: report

After raising $250,000 for a recount of Colorado’s Republican primary for secretary of state, far-right candidate Tina Peters has lost her race for a second time.

The Denver Post reported Thursday that the Mesa County clerk lost by more than 88,000 votes to more moderate Republican Pam Anderson.

Peters reportedly gained just four votes in the recount, which required the quarter-million dollar fee.

The Hill has reached out to the Colorado County Clerks Association to confirm. 

The Pro-Trump Peters made headlines and led fundraising within her party throughout the primary campaigns for the office, despite being indicted on several felony and misdemeanor charges related to election fraud. 

Peters is accused of tampering with election equipment and having a copy made of hard drives from Mesa County’s Dominion Voting machines. The Mesa County clerk said she did so to investigate what she suspected was election fraud.

The Colorado GOP called in March for Peters to suspend her campaign, and a judge barred her in May from working on her county’s elections during the midterms. She’d also been blocked from overseeing the 2021 elections.

A warrant for Peters’s arrest was issued mid-July.

Peters denies the charges made against her, attributing the indictments and her primary loss to political retribution for her election theories. 

She lost to Anderson, a former Jefferson County clerk, in the state’s June 28 primary before demanding a recount. Anderson rejects the 2020 presidential election fraud claims that former President Trump and Peters both tout. 

Anderson will now face Democratic incumbent Secretary of State Jena Griswold, who ran unopposed for her second term, in the November general election.

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After al-Zawahiri, what’s next for America’s Taliban policy?

The killing of al Qaeda’s leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, in a safe house in Afghanistan’s capital is a feat for the U.S. counterterrorism community, but it also indelibly paints a disturbing picture of the deep faith that various jihadists continue to place in their Taliban partners.

The discovery of safe houses and sleeper cells run by various countries and groups in Afghanistan’s major cities comes as no surprise. For years, the wider presence of such facilities have been an open secret operated by the neighboring countries, including Pakistan, Iran and even China. In some cases, senior Afghan officials in the previous government leased their own properties to nebulous groups and characters to house their unknown guests. Various jihadists from the Haqqani Network, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Pakistani Taliban and the Islamic State have long leveraged a vast network of sleeper cells in upscale neighborhoods. But al Qaeda’s decision to place its supreme leader within a mile of the presidential palace illustrates the strength of its multilayered alliance with the Taliban. 

While the conventional wisdom in Washington maintains that al Qaeda has become a statistical outlier in Afghanistan’s sprawling jihadist landscape, the group is hardly a bottom feeder in the country. The group’s codependent partnership with the Taliban’s core governing partners is one of mutual confidence. A measure of the vitality of this interwoven partnership is that al Qaeda fighters despise any labeling as “foreign fighters” by their Taliban partners, demonstrating their crucial role in the Taliban’s internal dynamics. 

In eastern Afghanistan, the joint venture has long relied on compartmented cells, effectively forming a lethal triangle consisting of a basket of armed fighters, logisticians and those involved in fundraising, recruitment and propaganda. In eastern Kunar province, al Qaeda’s presence had been so obvious that the local people identified certain districts as al Qaeda districts. In northeastern Afghanistan, the business side of the partnership has been involved in an extensive gold smuggling campaign in which joint Taliban and al Qaeda cells disguise themselves as local businessmen.

During the U.S.-Taliban talks in Doha, al Qaeda leaders and the Taliban hardliners expressed serious concerns to core Taliban leaders about how they were being sold out as part of the bilateral agreement. They rightly judged that unless they are at the table, they will be on the menu.

At al Qaeda’s urging, the Haqqani Taliban, which commanded the Taliban’s war management, pressed to place several of their key members in the boardroom in Doha. While the final agreement’s two classified annexes specified the Taliban’s counterterrorism promises, it also gave the al Qaeda-affiliated Taliban greater visibility into the operational and sequencing details of the five stages of American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

Indeed, the counterterrorism commitments appeared only to require the Taliban not to allow al Qaeda and other Salafist jihadists to plan and plot against the United States and not for them to cut ties or expel the jihadi variants from Afghanistan. At the time, the reasoning seemed to have been that were the Taliban pressured to expel jihadist elements from Afghanistan, where might they end up?

Instead, the concentration of jihadists within Afghanistan offered a practical alternative for monitoring and targeting purposes. Since then, the Taliban has only deepened its shared intelligence and operational understanding with different jihadi franchises.

Meanwhile, internally, the Taliban rulers have marched on to solidify their own control across Afghanistan, including burnishing their originalist Islamic credentials, engineering an Islamic identity based on Islamic nationalism and validating themselves as the vanguard for true Islamic leadership. In turn, this process has also increasingly informed the internal calculus of different jihadist groups to creatively reassess their own functions, reorganize and determine their new mission spaces. 

As such, a wide variety of jihadist outfits have since patiently reorganized, including several tactically reorienting to other theaters with a foot in Afghanistan. In this space, what has been missing is a debate about the role of scores of unaffiliated fighters, who are kinetically the most active in the broader region. While the bulk of these unaffiliated fighters (foreign and domestic) have long operated under the Taliban’s patronage, they are not in a monogamous relationship with the Taliban. 

More notably, several cells in this constellation have increasingly become worried about the Taliban’s promise of protection, with many now branching out to establish tactical partnerships with other outfits. The death of al-Zawahiri would only boost their suspicions of the Taliban’s promise, likely resulting in more militant diversification and newer alliances. This disparate consortium involves various Uzbek, Tajik, Uyghur and Pakistani groups and unaffiliated fighters, which includes many now rubbing elbows with al Qaeda and the Islamic State’s regional branch. 

As the Taliban rulers work to exploit this morphing threat to blackmail the regional and non-regional countries to extract recognition or normalization of relationships, al Qaeda’s new leadership would undoubtedly reassess its own ties with the Taliban.

While there are real risks of al Qaeda severing its Taliban ties, the Taliban hardliners could potentially mitigate possible al Qaeda overreaction by making important concessions to reset the partnership. This could include the Taliban deepening its intelligence and operational arrangement with al Qaeda, quietly conducting internal retaliatory killings to avenge the senior sheikh, rearranging al Qaeda camps and tightening key personnel for operational security. For the United States, while these brewing developments buy some time to re-evaluate its Taliban policy, it also offers several opportunities. 

First, Washington should declassify one of the two classified annexes of the Doha agreement to publicly scrutinize whether the Taliban is living up to its counterterrorism promises. 

Second, while Washington has largely regionalized solutions to the Afghan debacle, it should use the time to fix the limits of its over-the-horizon counterterrorism engagement — which, while significant, is insufficient. Despite the current nature of limited militant targeting, the distance limits in the “horizon” and erratic airspace access remain undefined. Local partners and ground support teams are largely missing, and critical intelligence collection, including from within the Taliban circles, is negligible. While some paramilitary elements of the previous Afghan counterterrorism pursuit teams appear to have made their way back into the country, their number and reach are limited.

What’s also been missing is a regional counterterrorism monitoring station (perhaps one based in Termez, Uzbekistan) to provide timely verification from the ground. Meanwhile, as Washington spent over $19 billion to support this engagement, there is also a need for a redefined U.S. regional counterterrorism strategy to provide clarity about America’s new rules of engagement. 

Third, as jihadists’ threat grows more decentralized, and the Taliban’s civilian bureaucracy becomes more militarized, the United States could also creatively expand and decentralize its targeted activities. Using the Afghan paramilitary support teams, Washington could consider expanding its roster of target package to include known Taliban/Haqqani operatives who have not ceased their enabling roles in the jihadist enterprise. This basket should include the Taliban’s senior- and mid-level intelligence operatives, couriers, financiers, logisticians and recruiters.

Finally, internally, the Taliban is undergoing an identity crisis, with the group split among the ideological variants and businessmen. The Taliban’s cohesion depends on how well they manage power and patronage, a recurring challenge that has long hobbled power dynamics in Afghanistan.

For Washington, a critical blind spot in its Taliban policy has been its negligible engagement with the Taliban’s powerful clerics, particularly in Kandahar. Because ideology is deeply entrenched in the Taliban’s actions, there is a burning need for robust religious diplomacy that creatively (and directly) engages the Taliban’s clerics. While Washington has discouraged backing organized armed opposition against the Taliban, it could instead consider cultivating an institutional counterweight within the Taliban’s governing ranks to shape their future choices and actions. 

Javid Ahmad is a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council and a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute. Follow him on Twitter @ahmadjavid.

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