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The Hill's Morning Report — Democrats pivot to same-sex marriage

Congress has its hands full this week as the House pushes ahead with a vote to codify same-sex marriage and Senate Democrats continue to wonder what to do about Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) amid a last-gasp effort to pass a budget reconciliation bill of any type. 

For the second time in less than a week, House Democrats are focusing on responses to the Supreme Court as the chamber will vote on a pair of bills: the Respect for Marriage Act, aimed at protecting same-sex marriages, and the Right to Contraception Act, which would cement the ability to obtain contraceptives. 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and other top Democrats have framed the vote as a rejection of Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion in last month’s ruling striking down Roe v. Wade that the court should reexamine those two items as rights.

“This week, the House will pass two more bills to protect freedom in our nation, as extremist Justices and lawmakers take aim at more of our basic rights,” Pelosi said in a note to House Democrats on Monday.

“Our Right to Contraception Act will preserve the essential protections found in Griswold v. Connecticut. Our Respect for Marriage Act – which, proudly, is bipartisan and bicameral – will defend the right to marry whomever you love, as found in Obergefell v. Hodges and Loving v. Virginia,” she added.

The Respect for Marriage Act is set to be voted on today, with the contraceptives vote expected later this week (The Hill). 

House Democrats last week approved two measures that push back against the court’s ruling to turn abortion over to the states. Both bills are unlikely to advance because of the Senate’s 60-vote hurdle. 

The future of the two bills being voted on tonight, however, is more murky. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) on Monday projected optimism that there could be a path forward on the two bills in the upper chamber despite a likely steep climb. 

▪ The Hill: House Democrats tout bill to add four seats to Supreme Court.

▪ The Washington Post: Abortion fight moves to terrain least favorable to Republicans.

▪ The Hill: Vice President Harris says rights under assault from “extremist so-called leaders.”

Across the Capitol hallways, Manchin on Monday maintained that he has not walked away from talks on a reconciliation package including a climate and tax agreement. 

However, some Senate Democrats appear ready to do just that as they turn the page on that effort and have refocused on a proposal aimed at lowering prescription drug costs and extending Affordable Care Act subsidies for two years. 

Faced with a choice of passing a scaled-down package or gambling on a climate bill and potentially walking away empty-handed, Democrats are prepared to get a small win after a year of being burned by talks with the West Virginia centrist that have landed them in the current awkward situation. 

“I’d go with the former rather than the latter,” said Sen. Jon Tester (D-Mont.) (Politico).

The anger within the Senate Democratic caucus reached the point where multiple members have questioned why Manchin is still the chairman of the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. 

Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), however, has not gone near that line, as he still needs Manchin’s support on key votes throughout the rest of the year at least. Durbin on Monday swatted away chatter about revoking Manchin’s chairmanship, telling reporters that Democrats shouldn’t risk their majority by “purging our ranks.”

Adding to the drama, Schumer continues to hold out hope that the moderate Democrat will seek a third term in 2024 in the deep-red state. 

As The Hill’s Alexander Bolton reports, other Democrats are trying to make the best of the situation and have urged President Biden to use his pen to deal with climate provisions. They have also reminded themselves that the Trump-era tax cuts are due to expire in 2025.

▪ The Hill: White House pushes for health-only budget reconciliation package.

▪ The Washington Post: Biden could declare climate emergency as soon as this week.

▪ The New York Times: How Manchin left a global tax deal in limbo.

▪ The Hill: How states could play a key role in the climate fight with Congress stalled. 

▪ Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent, The Washington Post: Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) eruption at Manchin highlights a deeper party difference.

On the investigative side, a pair of former Trump administration officials will headline Thursday’s primetime hearing before the Jan. 6 committee. Matthew Pottinger, the former deputy national security adviser who was in the West Wing on Jan. 6, 2021, and Sarah Matthews, a former press aide, will publicly testify to the panel about former President Trump’s lack of an effort to quell the riot at the Capitol. Both individuals resigned following the attack. 

Both Pottinger and Matthews have sat for meetings behind closed doors with the committee. Snippets of their testimony have been shown at prior hearings. At one point, Pottinger testified that he told then-White House chief of staff Mark Meadows that the National Guard was not yet at the Capitol, and that the former North Carolina lawmaker said he had made a number of calls to the Pentagon to do so (The New York Times). 

Matthews, who was also in the West Wing on the day of, is expected to discuss the efforts to have Trump release a statement during those crucial hours. Testimony given two weeks ago by then-White House counsel Pat Cipollone is also expected to be used throughout the hearing. 

Related Articles

▪ The Hill: Who is Sarah Matthews?

▪ Rebecca Beitsch and Mike Lillis, The Hill: Secret Service set to turn over ‘erased’ Jan. 6 texts. 

▪ Politico: “Sprint through the finish”: Why the Jan. 6 committee isn’t nearly done.

▪ Bloomberg News: Chips bill gains steam in Senate despite last-minute lobbying. 

   LEADING THE DAY

➤ POLITICS

The battle lines intensified in the Arizona GOP governor’s primary on Monday as former Vice President Mike Pence threw his support behind Karrin Taylor Robson, spurning Kari Lake, Trump’s preferred choice, only weeks before primary day. 

In a statement, Pence hailed Robson as “the only candidate for Governor that will keep Arizona’s border secure and streets safe, empower parents and create great schools, and promote conservative values,” adding that he is ”proud to support her.” 

The endorsement also puts the former VP on the same side as Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey (R), who appointed Robson to head the state’s three public universities from 2017 until announcing she jumped in the gubernatorial race. Ducey is term-limited (The Hill). 

It also sets up an intriguing split screen on Friday when both Trump and Pence will be on the ground in the Grand Canyon State to stump for their candidates of choice. Trump was forced to reschedule his planned rally on behalf of Lake, initially set for last Saturday, to Friday due to the death of Ivana Trump, his first wife.

The move also comes as the two candidates lob grenades at each other. Robson’s campaign outspent Lake 5-to-1 as of the end of June, drawing from her family’s wealth to flood the airwaves, and it has worked (The Associated Press). Having lagged far behind Lake in polls, Robson has pulled the contest close to even, bringing matters to a head.

“I’d say it’s a bloodbath right now,” one Arizona GOP operative told the Morning Report, noting the personal nature of the broadsides by both campaigns. “Add that to the [Republican Governors Association] beating Trump angle and the rumors of a Pence/Ducey ticket [in 2024], plus the 117 F weather makes everyone a bit crazy, and you are left with a super nasty primary.”

▪ Aaron Blake, The Washington Post: Pence turns Arizona into biggest test of a post-Trump GOP yet.

▪ The Hill: Five races to watch in Maryland’s primaries.

Elsewhere on the 2022 scene, Sanders made his mark in the Wisconsin Senate contest on Monday by endorsing Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes in the Democratic primary. 

Sanders is the latest senator to back Barnes, who has also earned the support of Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Cory Booker (D-N.J.), the latter of whom campaigned in Milwaukee for the Senate candidate. According to the most recent Marquette University Law School survey, Barnes and Milwaukee Bucks executive Alex Lasry lead the race with 25 percent and 21 percent support, respectively (The Hill).

▪ The New York Times: House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) uses personal fortune in primary against House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.).

▪ Emily Brooks, The Hill: Eyeing majority, House GOP mulls election investigations.

▪ The Hill: California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) plants flag on climate, spurring 2024 chatter.

IN FOCUS/SHARP TAKES

➤ ADMINISTRATION

All presidents have to-do lists of policies, responses and draft executive actions still on the stove. Advisers differ. Timing becomes a consideration. Other issues take precedence. And let’s not forget politics.

Examples: On Saturday, Biden said, “I don’t think anyone … should be in prison for the use of marijuana” when asked about his campaign pledge to release inmates imprisoned on marijuana charges. “We’re working on the crime bill now,” the president told a reporter. He has said similar things before, but some Democrats who believe the midterms could use a lift of enthusiasm from mobilized young progressives are paying close attention to what the president does next on the subject of marijuana. In 2020, Biden said he supported decriminalization but not legalization (High Times).

That brings us to student loan debt forgiveness. Biden has said “no” to Democratic proposals to waive student loans debts of up to $50,000 per borrower, but he has opened the door to $10,000 for those earning under $150,000 a year and extended help last year to 22,000 borrowers through a federal debt forgiveness program (Business Insider). Some predict the $10,000 announcement Biden has been mulling for half his term could be announced this month or in August. The government’s “pause” on student loan payments during the COVID-19 crisis expires Aug. 31 (Business Insider).

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo recently said Biden “shortly” would decide whether to lift U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports, which were levied by the Trump administration. Biden contradicted the secretary’s predicted timeline. “No, we are having further discussions on that,” he told reporters on July 10. The president continues to woo unions during public events and outreach, and organized labor wants the tariffs to remain. Most important to Biden, according to Raimondo: not “hurting American workers.” Analysts who want the Trump tariffs unchanged say U.S. inflation will not improve significantly if Biden eases the policy. Raimondo has conceded that point. Businesses say they are eager to hear from the president. He’s widely expected to lift or reduce tariffs on a relatively tiny fraction of imports: as little as $10 billion worth of Chinese products out of the roughly $350 billion in goods slapped with tariffs by his predecessor. Trade watchers want to know when (The Hill).

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen in Korea called for the United States and allies to fortify supply chains to combat China’s “unfair trade practices” (The Hill). (Her speech occurred Monday night EST, Tuesday in Seoul). In her remarks, the secretary vowed tough U.S. measures against countries that break the international economic order (Reuters).

🥾 Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, 61, broke her left leg (fibula) while hiking Sunday in Shenandoah National Park, the Interior Department said in a statement Monday. Haaland’s appreciation of the outdoors and fitness were on display last year when she completed the Boston Marathon, held on Indigenous Peoples’ Day (The Washington Post).

🔬 Anthony Fauci, 81, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Politico during a wide-ranging interview that he will retire from government by the time Biden finishes his term. He has been in government for five decades and served seven presidents. To many, he may be the face of the government’s COVID-19 response, but when he talks about his legacy, Fauci speaks about his work to respond to HIV-AIDS.

📝 Introducing NotedDC, The Hill’s curated commentary on the beat of the Beltway. Click here to subscribe to our latest newsletter. 

OPINION

■ Blame summer for Democrats’ failures? Not so fast, by Jonathan Bernstein, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion. https://bloom.bg/3oasOY7

■ These conditions could end the war in Ukraine, but they won’t happen soon, by Carl Bildt, contributing columnist, The Washington Post. https://wapo.st/3PsVKGu

WHERE AND WHEN

The House will meet at 10 a.m.

The Senate convenes at 10 a.m. to resume consideration of the nomination of Nina Y. Wang to be a district judge with the U.S. District Court in Colorado.

The president and the vice president will receive the President’s Daily Brief at 10 a.m. 

Attorney General Merrick Garland at 1 p.m. will speak during a ceremonial swearing-in event for Steven Dettelbach, director of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, at the ATF headquarters in Washington. Dettelbach will also make remarks.

The White House daily briefing is scheduled at 3 p.m.

🖥  Hill.TV’s “Rising” program features news and interviews at http://thehill.com/hilltv, on YouTube and on Facebook at 10:30 a.m. ET. Also, check out the “Rising” podcast here.

ELSEWHERE  

➤ INTERNATIONAL

In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelensky has taken aim at a different, shadowy enemy: spies and collaborators in government and society who are providing crucial help to the invading Russian forces. Russian sympathizers are reporting the locations of Ukrainian targets such as garrisons and ammunition depots, Ukraine’s officials say. Priests have sheltered Russian officers and informed on Ukrainian activists in Russian-occupied areas. One official said collaborators had removed explosives from bridges, allowing Russian troops to cross. The problem was cast into sharp relief on Sunday night when Zelensky purged two senior law enforcement officials (The New York Times).

The Wall Street Journal reports on Ukraine’s difficulties in moving complex Western-provided weapons systems to the front lines. Ukraine’s forces have little training with varied, sophisticated systems from multiple allies, which are not integrated.

Ukrainian first lady Olena Zelenska will address Congress on Wednesday, and all members have been invited. She met on Monday in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and will meet again with first lady Jill Biden following their get-together in May (The Associated Press).

The impact of Russia’s war against Ukraine is being felt in Europe after five months of sanctions, particularly when it comes to strained energy supplies and rising costs. The signs across Europe are evident, from rationing to economic distress in some industries, The Associated Press reports. Meanwhile, Russia benefits from higher energy prices. As a major oil and natural gas exporter, Russia honed an agile central bank and has years of experience living with sanctions. Moscow has managed to stabilize the ruble and inflation, despite the country’s pariah status in the West.

▪ The Associated Press: Europe’s leaders look to ink energy deals to work around Russia.

▪ The Hill: Iran over the weekend sanctioned dozens of current and former U.S. officials for what Tehran said is support for the Mujahedin, which it views as a “terrorist group.” 

Russia’s Gazprom has told customers in Europe it cannot guarantee natural gas supplies because of “extraordinary” circumstances, upping the ante in an economic tit-for-tat with the West over Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine (Reuters and The Wall Street Journal). There are worries Gazprom could turn off the tap this week.

To make matters more precarious in Western Europe, severe heat forced Great Britain to declare a national emergency as temperatures overnight hit a record and today’s prediction is 104 degrees Fahrenheit (The New York Times), while France and Spain are battling wildfires and evacuating thousands of citizens (The Guardian). … More than 1,100 people are thought to have died due to the ongoing heatwave in southern Europe (CNN).

On Monday, United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres warned about what he called climate change “collective suicide” as the heat wave grips Europe. In a video message delivered to a Berlin conference, Guterres urged collective action to shift away from greenhouse gas-producing fossil fuels (CNBC).

➤ POX & PANDEMIC  

This morning, the House select subcommittee on the coronavirus crisis convenes a hearing about the condition known as long COVID. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports that overall, 1 in 13 U.S. adults, or 7.5 percent, have “long COVID” symptoms, defined as symptoms lasting three or more months after first contracting the virus. Millions of Americans suffering from long COVID have trouble qualifying for disability benefits, although COVID-19 diagnosis is a federally recognized disability, albeit one that’s difficult to diagnose and verify (Global Biodefense).

The nation’s capital now leads the country in per capita cases of monkeypox infection (The Washington Post). … The New York City Health Department decided to switch to a single-dose vaccine strategy to battle the city’s monkeypox outbreak (Politico). Officials in both cities have asked the administration for more doses of monkeypox vaccine.

Total U.S. coronavirus deaths reported as of this morning, according to Johns Hopkins University (trackers all vary slightly): 1,024,266. Current average U.S. COVID-19 daily deaths are 336, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

➤ PRICING, INNOVATION, COMPETITION

Dozens of companies reported second-quarter earnings on Monday. High inflation gives them cover to telegraph price increases that hit consumers and exceed the companies’ own cost burdens, economists argue (The Hill).  

China and Russia are beating U.S. companies in the race to secure contracts in Chile, Argentina and Bolivia to extract lithium, which has seen explosive growth because of lithium-ion batteries. The Hill’s Rafael Bernal interviews Otto Reich, assistant secretary of State under former President George W. Bush, about how U.S. negotiators get left at the curb. “My friends in the hemisphere, and my own observations, tell me that the Chinese are ‘eating our lunch.’ Their diplomats are active, visible, responsive and skilled, just like U.S. officials used to be, except they are said to be more willing to use ‘financial incentives’ [bribes] to convince foreign decision-makers to ‘buy Chinese,’” Reich said.

THE CLOSER

And finally …  What can you do in two hours, 18 minutes and 11 seconds? If you are Gotytom Gebreslase of Ethiopia, you can smash a 17-year-old world championship record in the women’s marathon. 

Gebreslase took home the win in the women’s event on Monday after pulling away from Kenya’s Judith Jeptum Korir, who made a late charge. Gebreslase won by nine seconds to take home the gold. 

Monday also marked a second day of dominance by Ethiopians in the event. Tamirat Tola took home the men’s title in 2 hours, 5 minutes and 36 seconds on Sunday, a record at the world championships (ESPN). 

Stay Engaged

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Source: TEST FEED1

How states could play a key role in climate fight with Congress stalled

State governments could play a major role in cutting the nation’s planet-warming emissions, especially with Congress unable to unify on any major actions, according to public policy experts still stinging from Sen. Joe Manchin’s (D-W.Va.) decision last week to back away from action.  

While Manchin’s decision was a serious setback that likely dooms any action on climate by Congress, it doesn’t mean meaningful cuts to emissions can’t be made.  

It’s just that they’ll have to come from state, county and city governments.  

Sam Ricketts, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress think tank, said he sees a few different areas where states can step up their ambition.  

These include requiring shifts to electric vehicles, mandating clean energy use for electricity and electrifying new buildings.  

He called for “more states” to step up to the plate and embrace “100 percent clean power, 100 percent clean cars, 100 percent clean buildings.” 

State and city governments working with private business can get a “good amount” of the way toward President Biden’s goal of cutting emissions in half by 2030 compared to 2005 levels, said Nathan Hultman, a public policy professor at the University of Maryland who has served in the Biden and Obama administrations.  

“It would be a few percentage points away, probably, if it’s just cities, states and businesses,” he said.

None of this detracts from the need for federal action — or the disappointment in Manchin that is deeply felt in Democratic circles.  

Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) has questioned whether Manchin should continue to chair the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, while Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) accused him of “intentionally sabotaging” Biden’s agenda. Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich suggested kicking Manchin out of the party altogether.   

“It would be much better to have federal leadership here. I think states and industry would benefit from the certainty and from the leadership,” said Steve Cohen, a public affairs professor at Columbia University.  

“But we haven’t had it and we’re still making progress, so I suspect we’ll continue to do what we’ve been doing,” Cohen said.  

Manchin hasn’t totally ruled out voting in favor of climate legislation in the future. He blamed inflation for walking away from the climate talks last week after months of talks with fellow Democrats.  

But with Republicans seemingly poised to take back the House majority in this fall’s midterm elections, Democrats and climate advocates think a lack of action by Congress right now will leave global warming unchecked at the federal level for years.  

Hultman said the Manchin news may ramp up the pressure on cities and states to take even more ambitious action.  

“What we have seen in the past, and what we’ll likely see again, is renewed pressure on these states and cities and counties … to now step up and do more on their side,” he said.  

Hultman said states might see “pressure from their own constituencies to revisit” their climate policies, including to “crank up the number” as a result of new scientific information and the political situation.  

Citywide policies are also expected to help reign in climate change.  

Madison, Wis., Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway (D) told The Hill that her city was working on initiatives including subsidizing solar energy, requiring buildings to report their energy use in the hopes of improving efficiency and partnering with a local utility to put chargers in public parking garages.  

But state actions could limit what even mayors want to do on climate change. State laws can prevent mayors from taking certain actions, Rhodes-Conway said.  

“In order to reduce the emissions footprint of buildings, we need to be making our new building stock as energy efficient and as low emission as possible, and right now, we can’t require that in the city of Madison because we’re preempted on building codes,” Rhodes-Conway said.  

A recent analysis by CNN found that as some liberal cities try to ban natural gas, 20 states have laws that would prevent them from doing so.  

States with Democratic governors and legislatures are most likely to embrace bolder climate action. California, the nation’s most populous state, is expected to take a leading role.  

But states with Republican governors and legislatures, at least in more conservative parts of the country, are expected to lag.  

Cohen, of Columbia University, said this doesn’t mean there can’t be any climate progress in red states, especially as renewable energy becomes cheaper.  

“There is a consensus to be built in the country, even in places like Florida and Texas, about modernizing the energy system,” he said.  

Florida increasingly looks like a red state in elections, yet it also has a population highly concerned about climate change given its seaside communities. Texas is also experiencing the perils of climate change in heat waves and winter storms challenging its power grid. 

At the federal level, while legislative action may be on hold, Biden is vowing to take executive action.  

“If the Senate will not move to tackle the climate crisis and strengthen our domestic clean energy industry, I will take strong executive action to meet this moment,” he said in a statement on Friday. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Inflation is providing cover for price fixing: economists

Economists and lawmakers are warning that high inflation is providing companies with an excuse to telegraph price increases during earnings calls, reducing market competition and compounding the pain for consumers. 

“They’re profiteering, and they are using this moment and their monopoly power in many industries to raise prices on consumers,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) said in an interview, ahead of dozens of companies reporting second-quarter earnings this week. 

The Department of Labor reported last week that consumer inflation is now at 9.1 percent annually — the highest level in 40 years. Food prices are up more than 10 percent, energy prices are up more than 40 percent and “core inflation” — everything besides food and energy — is up almost 6 percent.

The worldwide trend of high inflation, which has led to unrest and labor protests in numerous countries, is caused by larger disruptions in the global economy resulting from the coronavirus pandemic. 

However, it is being exacerbated by companies in concentrated sectors essentially acting in cahoots to further price increases, economists argue.

“A bout of inflation creates an opportunity that didn’t previously exist for firms in concentrated industries to coordinate better their pricing decisions,” Hal Singer, managing director of Econ One Research and an adjunct professor at the Georgetown University McDonough School of Business, said in an interview.

“No price-fixing conspiracy in the modern world involves a written agreement where they sit down in a smoke-filled room and they say, ‘OK, we all go up by 10 percent.’ That’s not how it works. They’re not that dumb. What they’re doing is trying to coordinate in a way that defies scrutiny from the antitrust laws.” 

Singer said one common coordinating tactic is earning calls. 

“At the end of 2021 — I was livid — you’d hear these executives saying, ‘We plan on raising our prices by 17.24 percent next quarter.’ I thought to myself, I can’t believe the agencies are letting them get away with this. This is clearly an invitation to collude. If I’m a firm in a three-firm industry, and I commit via the airwaves to telling everyone I’m going up by 17.24 percent, that is a signal to my rivals that if they go up by anything less, they will not lose market share.”

During fast food chain Chipotle’s first-quarter earnings call, finance chief Jack Hartung said that his customers had shown “very little resistance” to price increases.

“Our transactions actually are up, even though we had pricing that was in that about 10 percent range,” Hartung told investors in April, according to market research firm Seeking Alpha. “The price increase is sticking just as expected. We don’t see any resistance.”

Industrial conglomerate 3M’s finance chief, Monish Patolawala, said on the company’s fourth-quarter 2021 earnings call in January that his “team has done a marvelous job in driving price. Price has gone up from 0.1 percent to 1.4 percent to 2.6 percent,” characterizing the trend as a “tailwind” to investors.

This sort of language about where prices are heading in the future comes close to the kind of price signaling identified as a no-no by the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

According to the Justice Department and FTC’s guidelines for “collaborations” among competitors, “the potential for future competition between participants in a collaboration requires antitrust scrutiny.”

“Other things being equal, the sharing of information relating to price, output, costs, or strategic planning is more likely to raise competitive concern than the sharing of information relating to less competitively sensitive variables,” the agencies’ joint guidance says.

Yet it’s not easy for lawyers and regulators to go after disclosures made on public earnings calls, Georgetown’s Singer said.

“The problem is that it’s very difficult for a private plaintiff or an AG [attorney general] to go after a firm that has been careful enough to only attempt to collude via public announcements in the airwaves,” he said.

One court case that helped to establish that norm involved airlines Delta and AirTran, who were accused in a class-action lawsuit of violating the antitrust Sherman Act by using earnings calls to coordinate their pricing, making sure that neither company lost market share by undercutting the other.

According to a write-up on the case from the American Bar Association, the court “rejected the plaintiff’s contention that statements made by an AirTran executive during an earnings call constituted an ‘invitation to collude,’ ” deciding instead that corporate communications to shareholders usually can’t be considered as an opportunity for collusion.

Despite the ruling, the power and profitability of big companies during a period of high inflation is drawing the anger of many Democratic lawmakers.

“Look at Big Oil,” Rep. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee and a co-founder of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in an interview. “On their earnings calls, they talked about their excess profits — excess profits — so they’re going to buy back $22 billion worth of stock that enriches the executives, enriches the stockholders. And people at the pump are paying.”

“You can start breaking up these monopolies, duopolies, cartels, whatever you want to call them. The last I heard, the Biden administration was trying to revive the antitrust division, but I haven’t heard much out of them. I don’t know what they’re up to,” he added.

While new antitrust laws pertaining to the tech sector have been introduced in the Senate, broader legislative efforts on the issue are few and far between. As a more immediate goal, Democrats are looking to tax windfall profits to recoup some of the excess profits, but these initiatives are hitting legislative snags, as well.

“I have a bill to have a windfall profits tax on the oil companies that’s very reasonably written,” DeFazio said. “They’d still be profitable, they’d still be making money. It would send a rebate check of $160 to every American over the age of 18. Unfortunately, my leadership has not seen fit to take it up.”

Republicans are generally less concerned about high profits for companies during high inflation, though some have joined Democrats in calling out the profit bonanza in the tightly concentrated meat packing and shipping industries, which has hurt some businesses in GOP constituencies.

And there’s growing consensus among academic economists that the market power of companies is getting bigger, allowing them to take more money from consumers. 

Markups — the difference between the price of a good and what it costs to make — have risen from about 21 percent in 1980 to 61 percent today, according to an influential paper written by Jan de Loecker, Jan Eeckhout and Gabriel Unger. 

The authors also found that the average profit rate has increased from 1 percent to 8 percent over the same period, showing that the economic power of companies over their customers is growing.

“What people don’t understand is the power of deterrence,” Singer said of potential collusion through earnings calls. “If the first CEO was hit with a lawsuit, like the announcement of an investigation, by the FTC, it would immediately chill and temper the enthusiasm of other CEOs to copy her. This should have been done a year ago.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Five races to watch in Maryland’s primaries

The primary contests to determine the Democratic and Republican nominees for Maryland governor are set to pit both parties’ establishment wings against insurgent forces as voters in the Old Line State head to the polls on Tuesday.  

But other key contests are playing out as well. In Maryland’s 4th District, Democratic voters will likely choose their next representative, while Republicans are slated to pick their nominee for a newly competitive western Maryland House seat currently held by a Democrat.  

Here are five races to watch in Maryland on Tuesday. 

Democratic gubernatorial primary 

Tom Perez and a super PAC backing him have spent more than any other candidate in the Democratic primary to succeed outgoing Gov. Larry Hogan (R).

But the contest has emerged as a competitive three-way race without a clear front-runner. Recent polling shows Perez, the former chair of the Democratic National Committee, virtually tied with nonprofit executive Wes Moore, while another candidate, state Comptroller Peter Franchot, trails not far behind. 

Perez, who also served as a Labor secretary under former President Obama, has sought to draw on his deep experience in politics and government to cast himself as a steady hand and safe choice for the Democratic nomination.  

Franchot, a staple of Maryland politics since the 1980s, has similarly pointed to his deep experience in state politics to make his case, while Moore has leaned on his personal biography and charisma.  

While Perez may have the vetting and credentials that many Democrats are looking for, the party is also showing signs of souring on the political establishment — a fact that could give an opening to other candidates on Tuesday. 

GOP gubernatorial primary

Like the Democratic primary for governor, the Republican nominating contest to succeed Hogan has emerged as a fight between the GOP establishment and its right flank.  

Hogan, a rare two-term GOP governor in a blue state, has endorsed former state Commerce Secretary Kelly Schulz, who has cast herself as a Republican in much the same vein as the outgoing governor, an establishment-aligned moderate.  

Donald Trump, meanwhile, is backing first-term state Del. Dan Cox, who is running for the support of the former president’s right-wing base. Cox helped organize buses for protesters to attend the “Stop the Steal” rally in Washington that preceded the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol. 

Many Republicans see Schulz as the more formidable general election candidate, and for that reason Democrats have intervened in the primary to boost Cox, continuing a strategy they have implemented in other GOP primaries around the country. Recent polling shows Cox either leading or in a dead heat with his establishment-aligned primary rival. And with both Hogan and Trump backing opposing candidates, the Tuesday primary will be perhaps the biggest proxy war in the state. 

4th District Democratic primary 

Maryland’s 4th Congressional District became the only open House seat up for grabs in the state this year after Rep. Anthony Brown (D) announced that he would not seek reelection in order to run for state attorney general.  

Donna Edwards, who represented the district until 2017, is running to get her old seat back, though she’s facing a challenge from former county prosecutor Glenn Ivey.  

The primary match-up has attracted heavy outside spending, with United Democracy Project, a super PAC whose biggest donor is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, dropping millions on ads criticizing Edwards.  

Meanwhile, the liberal pro-Israel group J Street has spent big in the race as well, backing Edwards and hitting Ivey.  

The stakes of the primary are high. Maryland’s 4th District tilts heavily Democratic, meaning the winner of the Tuesday nominating contest is virtually guaranteed to win the seat in November. 

6th District GOP primary 

A handful of Republicans are vying for the nomination to take on Rep. David Trone (D) after redistricting made the race for his seat more competitive.  

But the GOP primary is seen as a likely two-way match-up between state Del. Neil Parrott and conservative journalist Matthew Foldi, who has racked up a long list of high-profile endorsements in the race. 

There are reasons to believe that Parrott will pull off a win on Tuesday. He was the Republican nominee in the district in 2020, when he was routed by Trone, and has the backing of many GOP state legislators.  

But Foldi, 25, has captured the attention — and support — of top Republicans ranging from Donald Trump Jr. to Hogan with his combative brand of conservatism. 

Whoever wins will almost certainly face Trone in the November general election. And while Trone won handily last time, Republicans are hoping that they may just be able to flip the seat this year. The redistricting process effectively cut Democrats’ advantage there in half, though the seat still leans in their direction. 

Democratic Senate primary 

Sen. Chris Van Hollen is seeking his second full term in the Senate this year. But he’ll first have to make it past a primary challenge from Democrat Michelle Smith.  

Van Hollen is heavily favored to clinch his party’s nomination on Tuesday, but he’s facing questions about his health after suffering a minor stroke in May. While he has said that his doctors have told him there would not be any long-term effects from the stroke, it remains to be seen whether the medical episode has any impact in the primary. 

Either way, the eventual Democratic nominee will head into the general election as the favorite to win the Senate seat. Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 to 1 in Maryland, and the state hasn’t had a GOP senator in more than three decades.  

Still, that hasn’t stopped 10 Republicans from vying for the GOP’s Senate nomination this year. 

Source: TEST FEED1

LexisNexis under growing pressure to sever ties with ICE

A campaign aimed at convincing LexisNexis to terminate its contract with immigration enforcement has made significant headway in recent months with research breakthroughs and the recruitment of new allies.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has maintained a contract with the data broker best known for its legal research tools since at least last year.

Many new details of how the agency has utilized that multimillion-dollar contract to identify, pursue and deport undocumented immigrants have been revealed recently.

Last month, documents obtained by the immigrant advocacy group Just Futures Law showed that ICE agents searched the LexisNexis database more than 1.2 million times in just seven months of 2021.

The company’s tools bring together data on millions of individuals from a wide variety of sources, including credit agencies and utility providers.

The widespread use of the tools has raised serious questions about guarantees that LexisNexis’s technology is only used to identify individuals with dangerous criminal records.

More than a quarter-million of the searches were conducted by ICE’s Enforcement and Removal Operations, a department focused on locating and deporting immigrants often living far away from borders. 

The documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by Just Futures Law also confirmed another recently uncovered use of LexisNexis’s technology: federal officials skirting “sanctuary city” laws.

ICE has used third-party technology companies like the data broker to go around laws adopted by dozens of counties and states to restrict what information local law enforcement can share with immigration authorities, according to a report released this spring.

The report, put together by several immigrant advocacy groups including Mijente and the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, found that since Colorado passed a state sanctuary law in 2019, sheriffs have provided real-time incarceration data to ICE via LexisNexis tools.

That has let ICE continue to pick up immigrants targeted for deportation who are arrested, even if they are not ultimately found guilty of any crimes.

“What this looks like in practice is that one, ICE has access to both thousands of data points of commercial public data, as well as real time notifications about the incarceration status and release of people in local jails,” explained Mijente’s Cinthya Rodriguez. “That information can be used to target people for detention and deportations.”

The revelations about the use of data brokers like LexisNexis to circumvent sanctuary city policies have brought more parties into the push to have the firms drop work with ICE.

In Cook County, Ill., where Chicago is located, local officials have scheduled a first-of-its-kind hearing for next week on the topic.

“Our office started looking more in depth into some of the loopholes that currently exist to local and state legislation that protects immigrant communities,” County Commissioner Alma Anaya told The Hill. 

“It’s extremely important for us to take a deeper dive in the loopholes that exist while using technology and some private corporate institutions to be able to obtain information that ultimately leads to additional surveillance and separation of families.”

The July 27 hearing will provide an opportunity for local officials and constituents alike to learn about how ICE may be skirting rules put in place in 2015 blocking state agencies from cooperating with the agency.

“[The hearing] is also meant to set an example for other jurisdictions,” Anaya added.

Another group that has recently become an ally in the push for tech firms to drop ICE is librarians, a big part of LexisNexis’s customer base.

The Library Freedom Project (LFP), a group of librarians focused on surveillance threats, in conjunction with immigrant advocacy groups staged an action at the American Librarian Association Conference in Washington, D.C., last month bringing attention to LexisNexis’s work with ICE.

“The library world in the last few years and particularly our work in the LFP has focused significantly on different forms of vendor accountability because there’s become a big disconnect between what our values are and what our vendors’ values are,” said Alison Macrina, the Library Freedom Project’s director. 

Mijente rented a billboard truck to circle the event with information about LexisNexis’s work with ICE while the LFP worked on educating fellow conference attendees.

“The reaction was really strong and really engaged,” Macrina told The Hill. “People were coming and signing up and asking for more information. … The reaction was really exactly what we thought it would be because what we know about our colleagues at libraries is that these are very caring and dedicated community servants and they’re pretty aware of the unique attacks that happen on the undocumented communities that they serve.”

Mijente and the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition also staged a similar action at the American Association of Law Libraries conference in Denver this weekend calling on LexisNexis to stop working with ICE.

“LexisNexis, besides being a research tool used by librarians and lawyers across the country, is a massive government data broker, providing ICE with highly tailored personal information on tens of millions of people across the country,” Rodriguez said. 

“The company is on notice: Librarians and lawyers across the country are calling on them to stop working on deportations and stop terrorizing immigrant communities.”

Source: TEST FEED1

Eyeing majority, House GOP mulls election investigations

House Republicans planning to take control of the chamber in this year’s midterms are weighing how much of a priority to make examining election systems and laws. 

Some conservatives, particularly the most vocal of Trump supporters, are pointing to perceived issues in the 2020 election that they think deserve attention.  

But GOP leaders are already set to spend considerable time and energy on an avalanche of planned investigations and probes on other issues, and some in the party are wary of relitigating 2020 election fraud claims rather than conducting general election oversight. 

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) led a letter signed by 10 other Republicans last week to House Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.) asking for hearings to “investigate the potential illegal activities revealed in the documentary film 2000 Mules.”  

The film, produced by conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza, examines whether thousands of “mules” were paid to stuff drop boxes with ballots, pointing to surveillance video and cellphone location tracking data. Numerous fact-checkers have said that the film does not show definitive evidence of widespread voter fraud, and former Attorney General William Barr told the House select committee investigating the Capitol riot that he was “unimpressed” with the movie. 

D’Souza, however, was encouraged by Biggs’s letter, calling it an indication of Republican priorities next year. 

“The GOP moves slowly, but it’s moving now,” he tweeted in response to the letter. “Wait and see what happens after the midterms when we take the House!” 

Biggs said he would “love” an Oversight Committee hearing on the issues raised in the movie either “now or later.” And when asked, other Republicans express interest in probing those issues as well. 

“I do think that the movie raises some serious allegations that should be investigated, and the only way you can determine whether something’s valid or not is to do a thorough investigation,” said Rep. Gary Palmer (R-Ala.), chair of the House Republican Policy Committee, adding that it’s “inevitable” that Republicans look into election administration matters next year. 

But others want to keep focus on the issues they say are motivating the midterm voters they need to win control of the chamber in the first place. 

“We’ve got to focus on fuel, food, crime, education, border,” Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.), chief deputy whip for the House GOP, said when asked about Biggs’s letter and probing election systems in general. 

A New York Times-Siena College national survey of registered voters this month found that the economy and inflation were most often cited as the most important problem facing the country today. Just 3 percent of Republicans and 1 percent of independents named election integrity as the most important issue. 

The Republican preparing to take over the House Oversight and Reform Committee gavel in a GOP majority, ranking member James Comer (R-Ky.), is preparing for investigations and hearings into the origins of COVID-19, management of the border and Hunter Biden’s overseas business activities. The committee with jurisdiction to investigate election fraud and irregularities, Comer said, would be the House Administration Committee, not his. 

The ranking member on that committee, Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.), will not be in Congress next year because Rep. Mary Miller (R-Ill.) defeated him in a primary last month. And the other GOP members on the committee, Reps. Barry Loudermilk (Ga.) and Bryan Steil (Wis.), have not been specific about the kind of election oversight activities they expect in a GOP majority. 

“We’ll have conversations about the importance of election integrity. What shape that takes, I don’t know. We’ll see who the next chairman is,” Steil said.  

Loudermilk said that the committee is leaving most of the investigation into elections to individual states. 

“We will be working on election integrity issues, but as far as investigating the 2020 elections, I don’t know that that is currently in our set of objectives to dig deeply into it,” Loudermilk said. “But we’ll take a look at that at the time.” 

Some House GOP probes overlap with election matters without getting into the weeds of election administration. Earlier this year, Republicans on the House Judiciary Committee started an investigation into suppression of a New York Post story about Hunter Biden’s laptop, with House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) saying that “election integrity is threatened when Big Tech censors real stories.” 

Members who want to probe election issues also want investigations into numerous other issues and are not necessarily putting election integrity as a higher priority. 

House Freedom Caucus Chairman Scott Perry (R-Pa.) stressed that having trust in elections is essential to a free republic and said that investigations into election systems have to be on the table. But he also mentioned the border, crime and inflation as important issues. 

“There’s a cornucopia of problems that are plaguing the American people right now,” Perry said. 

Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), who signed on to Biggs’s letter, said she would like to see hearings on elections and presentations about the cellphone data discussed in “2000 Mules.”  

“I think our priorities, first and foremost, should be getting inflation under control and gasoline prices down. So there’s a lot of priorities, but election integrity is important,” Lesko said. 

“It’s whack-a-mole on crazy every single day up here,” said Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas). Along with examining elections, he called for “significant oversight” of the border, potential abuse of power in the Department of Justice and public health policies. 

“I don’t know where it all falls in the batting order, but all these things need oversight,” Roy said. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Why put solar panels on the surface of water?

Floatovoltaics — or solar panel installations built to float on bodies of water — are emerging as a useful tool in the world’s quest to ramp up renewable energy sources and cut greenhouse gas emissions. 

Just last month, the Army rolled out a floating solar farm atop the Big Muddy Lake at Fort Bragg in North Carolina as part of the military branch’s climate strategy to increase the use of clean energy. The 1.1 megawatt system, the largest of its kind in the Southeastern U.S., will help supply power to the nation’s largest domestic military base and provide power during electric service outages. The installation is the first deployed by the Department of Defense and marks growing interest in the U.S. for the technology. 

Meanwhile in New Jersey, construction is underway to build the largest floating solar array in the U.S. The 8.9 megawatt structure made up of more than 16,000 solar panels will sit on a reservoir at the Canoe Brook Water Treatment Plant, which serves customers in parts of Essex, Morris, Passaic, Somerset and Union counties and is expected to generate 95 percent of the facility’s annual power needs through a power purchase agreement. The system is expected to be completed in the fall of 2022. 

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But the U.S. has largely lagged behind many other regions of the world in deploying floating solar technology. Asia is currently the largest market for floating solar; specifically Southeast Asia, where installing traditional solar farms is pricey due to the high cost of land, yet hydropower is abundant, and thus, many reservoirs ideal for floating solar arrays are available for use. Currently, the 320 megawatt Dezhou Dingzhuang Floating Solar Farm in China is the largest floating PV project to come online to date. 

According to researchers, floatovoltaics may very well have the potential to solve many issues associated with traditional domestic solar energy installations. A 2018 study from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) estimated that installing floating solar installations on the more than 24,000 man-made reservoirs in the U.S. could produce around 10 percent of the nation’s annual electricity production. 

How do floating solar panels work?

Floating photovoltaics work much like traditional solar installations with the exception of their location. Solar panels are secured to buoyant structures like plastic pontoons to keep them afloat on the surface of a body of water. The installations are typically located in man-made bodies of water, such as reservoirs from wastewater treatment plants, drinking water reservoirs or hydropower plants. 

What are the advantages of floating solar?

There are several unique advantages to installing a floating solar farm versus traditional solar projects. One obvious advantage is floating systems avoid taking up valuable and expensive land near population centers that could otherwise be used for housing, infrastructure or agriculture. Traditional solar farms are land intensive and tend to take up more space on a per-watt basis than fossil fuels. 

There is research suggesting that solar panels may operate more efficiently when buoyed on the surface of water, although researchers note more work needs to be done to conclude whether that’s the case. 

“What we see is that when you put the panels on the water you’re able to lower the temperature of the panels and some of the cooling effects essentially increase the efficiency of a solar panel,” Sika Gadzanku, an expert of floating solar technologies with the NREL, said in an interview. 

“So you’re able to produce more solar power compared to a land-based system. So that’s one of the big advantages when you’re just thinking about power.” 

Gadzanku said panels are also able to be packed tighter for floating solar compared to traditional systems due to the difference in tilting to draw power from the sun. There’s also no risk of shading because the system sits on a reservoir. The shade the floating systems produce may also help reduce evaporation from water bodies, which could be particularly advantageous for areas susceptible to droughts. 

There are also hybrid-related benefits associated with installing floating solar in coordination with hydropower plants. 

“If you install it in a place with existing transmission you don’t need to build transmission. So you’re saving money there,” Gadzanku said. 

“During the dry seasons, there are concerns if there’s not as much rain. Now, if you had floating solar paired with hydro, you can reduce your reliance on hydro during the wet season and save that water for use during the dry season. So there’s a lot of potential benefits there.” 

Disadvantages and unknowns

One drawback is that floating solar technology currently costs more to develop than land-based solar and are generally more practical for large-scale application. The racking system also needs to be high corrosion resistant and have a long lifespan. 

Researchers have also stressed more research needs to be done on the potential environmental impacts of the technology. 

“A lot of the installations started with artificial reservoirs because they don’t have as many questions about potential impacts on the water body,” Gadzanku said. 

“But once you go into natural water bodies, then you need to think about ecosystem impacts…With floating solar, you’re installing on so many different water body types in so many different climatic regions, so research in one country can tell you something, but it won’t tell you everything. That makes things a bit tricky.” 

It’s also unclear how plastics and metals from the floating mechanisms will impact the quality of the water, if it impacts the growth of algae or the broader ecosystem. 

Source: TEST FEED1

Noose found near CIA facility in Virginia: report

An object thought to be a noose has been found outside a secret facility in Virginia used by the C.I.A., according to The New York Times.

Those familiar with the situation said that C.I.A. director William J. Burns shared news of the finding internally last week.

The location involved in the incident is reportedly a small facility in a building that has several businesses. It remains unclear if the object was crafted to be a noose, or if it was intentionally targeting the C.I.A. location, and is not necessarily suspected to have been left by a C.I.A. employee, the Times notes.

“C.I.A. has zero tolerance for actions or symbols of hatred and treats any such incidents with the utmost seriousness,” Susan Miller, a C.I.A. spokeswoman told the outlet. “Our values and our vital national security mission demand that we uphold nothing less than the highest standards of inclusiveness and safety.”

Several incidents of nooses or noose-like objects have been reported at businesses and organizations across the country in recent years. Recently, Stanford University announced that it was investigating a noose found on campus as a hate crime.

“It is deeply disturbing that someone would choose to inflict this repugnant symbol on our community,” Stanford President Marc Tessier-Lavigne said in a May statement.

Source: TEST FEED1

Trump responds to Pulitzer rejection of demand to revoke reporting awards

Former President Trump on Monday cast the Pulitzer Prize board’s rejection of his demand to revoke awards given to The New York Times and The Washington Post as “running cover” for “the biggest reporting failure in modern history.”

The board earlier Monday said it would not fulfill multiple requests by Trump to rescind awards to the staff of the two newspapers in 2018 for reporting on Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election because it saw no reason to do so.

“The Pulitzer Board has taken away any shred of credibility it had left with its ‘response’ regarding the 2018 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting, which was awarded to The New York Times and The Washington Post for blatant fake news,” Trump said in a statement.

“Instead of acting with integrity and providing transparency, the Pulitzer Board is running cover for the biggest reporting failure in modern history: the fake Russia Russia Russia collusion hoax,” he added.  

Trump then suggested that the only Pulitzer the two newspapers should be awarded was if a new category called “disinformation” was created.

“The truth is that the 2018 Pulitzer Prize was handed out for reporting that merely parroted political disinformation—disinformation that we know was fabricated by foreign operatives and my political opponents,” Trump said.

“If the Pulitzer Prize has become a blatant acknowledgement of false, liberal political propaganda, then the Pulitzer Board should just say so,” he added.

The board said it conducted a review and found no reason to revoke the news outlets’ rewards. 

“The separate reviews converged in their conclusions: that no passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes,” the board said in its statement, adding, “The 2018 Pulitzer Prizes in National Reporting stand.” 

Trump said that he would “continue doing everything possible to right the wrong caused by the 2018 Pulitzer Prize,” adding that he would do the same when it came to the Jan. 6 committee’s investigations into his involvement in the Capitol riot.

Source: TEST FEED1

Russia tells its forces to target Western-provided weapons

Russian leadership told its forces this week to target weapons provided by Western countries in its assault on Ukraine, according to the Russian Defense Ministry.

“Army General Sergei Shoigu, noting the strengthening of the group’s strike capabilities, instructed the commander to prioritize the destruction of enemy long-range missiles and artillery with high-precision weapons,” the ministry said, according to Interfax Ukraine.

Shoigu gave the new instructions to Russia’s Vostok battalion, which is currently fighting in the Donbas region of Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that targeting these Western-supplied missile systems would help shield Russian troops settled in eastern Ukraine from being shelled.

Shoigu’s commands follow a $820 million weapons package approved by the Pentagon for Ukraine earlier this month.

The U.S. has sent several M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS) to Ukraine, which Ukrainian Minister of Defense Oleksii Reznikov called a “game-changer,” and plans on sending four more.

Russian forces have overwhelmed eastern Ukraine over past months, but new weapons systems have allowed the Ukrainian army to push back, Reznikov said.

The U.K., Germany and Norway have each recently sent M270 multiple-launch rocket systems to the embattled country.

However, Reznikov continues to plead with countries affiliated with the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to support Ukraine militarily as it defends itself against Russian troops.

“We needed to persuade them, to show them proof,” Reznikov said of Ukraine’s Western allies. “In the Izyum case, we were precise [in targeting] a Russian command center for aerial operations…Our partners saw it and said, ‘You passed the test.’”

Source: TEST FEED1