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      Farmers Block Traffic Near Paris With Tractors Before Macron’s Speech

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      The protesters are angry about subsidies, environmental regulations and foreign competition, with demonstrations now into a second day. So far, government attempts to ease the tensions have failed.Barricades of tractors and bales of hay snarled traffic around Paris on Tuesday for a second day as hundreds of angry farmers blocked roads in and out of the French capital before a major policy speech by France’s prime minister.The authorities closed off whole sections of at least seven major highways around Paris because of the protests, sometimes for several miles, as farmers demanded solutions to their varied list of demands on farming subsidies, environmental regulations and foreign competition.About 1,000 protesters with more than 500 tractors formed the road barricades around Paris, according to estimates by the French authorities reported in the news media.The traffic bottlenecks, while bad, did not encircle the city and were not crippling, and broader disruptions to the French capital, such as delayed deliveries of food and other products, were so far limited.Protesting farmers also blocked roads in other areas of France. In the southwestern region, where the protests started and where they have been particularly acute, farmers tried to block access to the main airport serving Toulouse by setting bales of hay on fire. The French prime minister, Gabriel Attal, was expected on Tuesday to give his first major policy speech since his appointment to the position by President Emmanuel Macron this month.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?  More

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      Protesters at the Louvre Hurl Soup at the Mona Lisa

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      Two women from an environmental group threw pumpkin-colored soup at the artwork, which is behind bulletproof glass at the Louvre and did not appear to sustain damage.Two protesters from an environmental group hurled pumpkin-colored soup on the Mona Lisa at the Louvre museum in Paris on Sunday, splashing the bulletproof glass that protects the most famous painting in the world, but not apparently damaging the work itself.As the customary crowd around the 16th-century painting by Leonardo da Vinci gasped in shock, the protesters, two young women, followed up their attack by passing under a barrier and standing on either side of the artwork, hands raised in an apparent salute.“What is more important? Art or the right to have a healthy and sustainable food system?” the activists said, speaking in French. “Our agricultural system is sick.” They were led away by Louvre security guards.It was not immediately clear how the women got the soup through the elaborate security system at the museum, which borders the Seine and contains a vast art and archaeological collection spanning civilizations and centuries.One of the women removed her jacket to reveal the words Riposte Alimentaire, or Food Response, on a white T-shirt. Riposte Alimentaire is part of a coalition of protest groups known as the A22 movement. They include Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil, the group that poured tomato soup over Vincent Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London in 2022.The attack on the Mona Lisa came as French farmers have blocked roads, including approaches to Paris, in recent days to protest low wages and what they see as excessive regulation. Many new regulations in France reflect the attempt to forge a green, carbon-free European economy, an objective that the farmers consider too expensive and burdensome in the near term.The protests by the two young women and the farmers appeared to reflect two starkly different views of agriculture and the appropriate priorities for European society.Staff at the Louvre on Sunday tried to erect cloth screens to conceal the soup-splashed Mona Lisa, but the screens were not effective. Images of the attack quickly went viral on social media.The Mona Lisa has been behind glass since the 1950s, when a visitor poured acid on it. In 2019, the museum installed glass of what it said was superior transparency. Three years later, another environmental activist threw cake and cream at the painting. It was undamaged.The latest attack will heighten security concerns ahead of the Paris Olympics.The opening ceremony is just six months away and will take place on the Seine. A flotilla of boats will carry about 10,000 athletes to the foot of the Eiffel Tower, as nearly a half-million spectators, including many heads of state, line the four-mile route. The boats will sail past the Louvre as part of a ceremony conceived to showcase the beauty of Paris, but which has raised serious security issues that are still under review. More

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      Jonathan Shell Wins Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Race

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      Jonathan Shell, a former Republican state legislator, won an open seat on Tuesday to become Kentucky’s next agriculture commissioner, according to The Associated Press, easily defeating a Democrat who was running for office for the first time.Mr. Shell’s victory over Sierra Enlow, an economic development consultant, underscored the strength of the Republican Party’s recent focus on winning down-ballot races in statewide elections, particularly in the South and the Midwest.While Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, won re-election by beating Attorney General Daniel Cameron, Republicans captured the six other down-ballot races — including attorney general — by double-digit margins.Mr. Shell succeeds Ryan F. Quarles, who served the maximum of two four-year terms. The victory extends a 20-year winning streak by Kentucky Republicans for the agriculture post, whose sizable portfolio includes regulating the sale of fuel and containing animal disease outbreaks.Kentucky has hardly been unique: While Democrats once claimed all 12 elected agriculture seats as recently as two decades ago, Republicans now hold all of them.Elected to the State House in his mid-20s, Mr. Shell, now 35, was once hailed by Senator Mitch McConnell as “one of the most important Republicans in Kentucky.”Mr. Shell, a fifth-generation farmer, nationalized the agriculture contest, vowing to do battle “against radical liberal ideas that threaten our way of life” and to help defeat President Biden, whose voter approval ratings in Kentucky are down to 22 percent.Ms. Enlow, also 35, grew up cutting tobacco on her family’s farm. Calling herself a pro-business Democrat, she had pledged to increase the pay of agriculture employees and to ensure a robust supply chain for medical marijuana, which was recently legalized.But Mr. Shell’s party affiliation mattered most, said Al Cross, director emeritus of the Institute for Rural Journalism and Community Issues at the University of Kentucky.“These are not races that get a lot of attention — people default to party choice,” he said. More

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      Biden to Travel to Minnesota to Highlight Rural Investments

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      The president’s push to focus attention on the domestic economy comes as his administration has been dealing with events overseas after the terrorist attacks in Israel.The White House on Wednesday will announce more than $5 billion in funding for agriculture, broadband and clean energy needs in sparsely populated parts of the country as President Biden travels to Minnesota to kick off an administration-wide tour of rural communities.The president’s efforts to focus attention on the domestic economy ahead of next year’s campaign come after three weeks in which his administration has been seized by events overseas following the terrorist attacks in Israel and the state’s subsequent military action in Gaza.The trip will take place as Mr. Biden is urging Congress to quickly pass a $105 billion funding package that includes emergency aid to Israel and Ukraine, two conflicts he has described as threats to democracy around the globe.But the president and his aides are well aware that his hopes for a second term are likely to be determined closer to home. Rural voters like the ones he will address at a corn, soybean and hog farm south of Minneapolis are increasingly voting Republican. A recent poll showed that most voters had heard little or nothing about a health care and clean energy law that is the cornerstone of Mr. Biden’s economic agenda. And the president even faces a challenge within his own party, from Representative Dean Phillips of Minnesota, who announced his long-shot presidential bid last week.Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary, declined on Tuesday to speak about campaign issues, citing the Hatch Act, which limits political activity by federal officials, but said that Mr. Biden “loves Minnesota.” Administration officials have said Mr. Biden’s trip was planned before Mr. Phillips announced his candidacy.The White House has called the next two weeks of events the “Investing in Rural America Event Series.” It includes more than a dozen trips by Mr. Biden as well as cabinet secretaries and other senior administration officials. The White House said in a statement that the tour would highlight federal investments that “are bringing new revenue to farms, increased economic development in rural towns and communities, and more opportunity throughout the country.”Mr. Biden will be joined on Wednesday by Tom Vilsack, the agriculture secretary. Against the backdrop of a family farm that uses techniques to make crops more resilient to climate change, they will announce $1.7 billion for farmers nationwide to adopt so-called climate-smart agriculture practices.Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will join President Biden in Minnesota and later travel to Indiana, Wyoming and Colorado.Haiyun Jiang for The New York TimesOther funding announcements include $1.1 billion in loans and grants to upgrade infrastructure in rural communities; $2 billion in investments as part of a program that helps rural governments work more closely with federal agencies on economic development projects; $274 million to expand high-speed internet infrastructure; and $145 million to expand access to wind, solar and other renewable energy, according to a White House fact sheet.“Young people in rural communities shouldn’t have to leave home to find opportunity,” Neera Tanden, director of the White House Domestic Policy Council, said Tuesday on a call with reporters.She said federal investments were creating “a pathway for the next generation to keep their roots in rural America.”Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, a Democrat, said he expected Mr. Biden to face serious headwinds in rural communities, in large part because of inflation levels.“It is a little challenging, there’s no denying, when prices go up,” Mr. Walz said. “The politics have gotten a little angrier. I think folks are feeling a little behind.”But Mr. Walz also praised Mr. Biden for spending time in rural communities. “Democrats need to show up,” he said.Kenan Fikri, the director of research at the Economic Innovation Group, a Washington think tank, said the Biden administration had made sizable investments over the past two and a half years in agriculture, broadband and other rural priorities.“The administration has a lot to show for its economic development efforts in rural communities,” he said, but “whether voters will credit Biden for a strong economic performance is another question.”Later in the week Mr. Vilsack will travel to Indiana, Wyoming and Colorado to speak with agricultural leaders and discuss land conservation. Deb Haaland, the interior secretary, will go to her home state of New Mexico to highlight water infrastructure investments.Energy Secretary Jennifer M. Granholm will be in Arizona to talk about the electricity grid and renewable energy investment in the rural Southwest.The veterans affairs secretary, Denis McDonough, plans to visit Iowa to discuss improving access to medical care for veterans in rural areas. Isabel Guzman, who leads the Small Business Administration, will travel to Georgia to talk about loans for rural small businesses.Miguel A. Cardona, the education secretary, will go to New Hampshire to promote how community colleges help students from rural areas. Xavier Becerra, the secretary of health and human services, will be in North Carolina to talk about health care access in rural areas. More

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      How Did Democrats Lose Control of State Agriculture Policy?

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      How Did Democrats Lose Control of State Agriculture Policy?Democrats once dominated statewide elections for the influential post of agriculture commissioner. Now they’re hoping to win just one.Kentucky is one of 12 states with elected agriculture commissioners. Clockwise from top left: A soybean farm in Adairville; harvesting apples in Nancy; a tractor caution sign in Pulaski County; a livestock auction in Somerset.Nov. 1, 2023Jonathan Robertson was preparing to start the workday on his family cattle farm when a campaign ad in the race for agriculture commissioner of Kentucky flashed across his television.He couldn’t hear the narrator, but he noticed that the candidate — the name was Shell, he believed — was shown on the screen baling hay and driving farm equipment.“I haven’t heard anything about who’s running,” Mr. Robertson, 47, recalled a few hours later, stopping with his brother for the $5.99 lunch special at the Wigwam General Store in Horse Cave., Ky. “Who’s his opponent?”Neither Mr. Robertson nor his brother, Josh, 44, knew who was in the race, but they had no doubt how they would vote: “I’m a straight-ticket Republican,” Josh said.Democrats face daunting odds in races for the under-the-radar but vitally important position of state agriculture commissioner — and not just in Kentucky, where the two people competing on Nov. 7 are Jonathan Shell, a former Republican state legislator, and Sierra Enlow, a Democratic economic development consultant.Jonathan Shell, the Republican candidate for Kentucky agriculture commissioner, is a former state legislator and a fifth-generation farmer.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.Confirming article access.If you are a subscriber, please  More

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      Our Immigration System: ‘A Waste of Talent’

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      More from our inbox:Cruelty at the BorderLimiting the President’s Pardon PowersAre A.I. Weapons Next?U.S. Food Policy Causes Poor Food ChoicesMateo Miño, left, in the church in Queens where he experienced a severe anxiety attack two days after arriving in New York.Christopher Lee for The New York TimesTo the Editor:“As Politicians Cry Crisis, Migrants Get a Toehold” (news article, July 15) points up the irrationality of the U.S. immigration system. As this article shows, migrants are eager to work, and they are filling significant gaps in fields such as construction and food delivery, but there are still great unmet needs for home health aides and nursing assistants.The main reason for this disjunction lies in federal immigration law, which offers no dedicated visa slots for these occupations (as it does for professionals and even for seasonal agricultural and resort workers) because they are considered “unskilled.”Instead, the law stipulates, applicants must demonstrate that they are “performing work for which qualified workers are not available in the United States” — clearly a daunting task for individual migrants.As a result, many do end up working in fields like home health care but without documentation and are thus vulnerable to exploitation if not deportation. With appropriate reforms, our system would be capable of meeting both the country’s needs for essential workers and migrants’ needs for safe havens.Sonya MichelSilver Spring, Md.The writer is professor emerita of history and women’s and gender studies at the University of Maryland, College Park.To the Editor:We have refugee doctors and nurses who are driving taxi cabs. What a waste of talent that is needed in so many areas of our country.Why isn’t there a program to use their knowledge and skills by working with medical associations to qualify them, especially if they agree to work in parts of the country that have a shortage of doctors and nurses? It would be a win-win situation.There are probably other professions where similar ideas would work.David AlbendaNew YorkCruelty at the BorderTexas Department of Public Safety troopers look over the Rio Grande, as migrants walk by.Suzanne Cordeiro/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Re “Officers Voice Concerns Over Aggressive Tactics at the Border in Texas” (news article, July 20):In the past year, I have done immigration-related legal work in New York City with recently arrived asylum seekers from all over the world: Venezuela, China, Honduras, Guatemala, Ecuador and Ghana. Most entered the U.S. on foot through the southern border. Some spent weeks traversing the perilous Darién Gap — an unforgiving jungle — and all are fleeing from horribly violent and scary situations.Texas’ barbed wire is not going to stop them.I am struck by the message of the mayor of Eagle Pass, Rolando Salinas Jr., who, supportive of legal migration and orderly law enforcement, said, “What I am against is the use of tactics that hurt people.” I desperately hope we can all agree about this.There should be no place for immigration enforcement tactics that deliberately and seriously injure people.I was disturbed to read that Texas is hiding razor wire in dark water and deploying floating razor wire-wrapped “barrel traps.” These products of Gov. Greg Abbott’s xenophobia are cruel to a staggering degree.Noa Gutow-EllisNew YorkThe writer is a law school intern at the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.Limiting the President’s Pardon Powers Tom Brenner for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “U.S. Alleges Push at Trump’s Club to Erase Footage” (front page, July 28) and “Sudden Obstacle Delays Plea Deal for Biden’s Son” (front page, July 27):With Donald Trump campaigning to return to the White House while under felony indictment, and with Hunter Biden’s legal saga unresolved, there should be bipartisan incentive in Congress for proposing a constitutional amendment limiting the president’s pardon power.A proposed amendment should provide that the president’s “reprieves and pardons” power under Article II, Section 2, shall not apply to offenses, whether committed in office or out, by the president himself or herself; the vice president and cabinet-level officers; any person whose unlawful conduct was solicited by or intended to benefit any of these officials; or a close family member of any of these individuals.Stephen A. SilverSan FranciscoThe writer is a lawyer.To the Editor:Beyond asking “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Donald Trump may now ask, “Where’s my Rose Mary Woods?”David SchubertCranford, N.J.Are A.I. Weapons Next? Andreas Emil LundTo the Editor:Re “Our Oppenheimer Moment: The Creation of A.I. Weapons,” by Alexander C. Karp (Opinion guest essay, July 30):Mr. Karp argues that to protect our way of life, we must integrate artificial intelligence into weapons systems, citing our atomic might as precedent. However, nuclear weapons are sophisticated and difficult to produce. A.I. capabilities are software, leaving them vulnerable to theft, cyberhacking and data poisoning by adversaries.The risk of proliferation beyond leading militaries was appreciated by the United States and the Soviet Union when banning bioweapons, and the same applies to A.I. It also carries an unacceptable risk of conflict escalation, illustrated in our recent film “Artificial Escalation.”J. Robert Oppenheimer’s legacy offers a different lesson when it comes to advanced general-purpose A.I. systems. The nuclear arms race has haunted our world with annihilation for 78 years. It was luck that spared us. That race ebbed only as leaders came to understand that such a war would destroy humanity.The same is true now. To survive, we must recognize that the reckless pursuit and weaponization of inscrutable, probably uncontrollable advanced A.I. is not a winnable one. It is a suicide race.Anthony AguirreSanta Cruz, Calif.The writer is the executive director and a co-founder of the Future of Life Institute.U.S. Food Policy Causes Poor Food Choices Steven May/AlamyTo the Editor:Re “Vegans Make Smaller Mark on the Planet Than Others” (news article, July 22):While I agree that people could help reduce greenhouse-gas emissions by eating plants only, I find it crucial to note that food policy is the main reason for poor food choices.Food choices follow food policy, and U.S. food policy is focused on meat, dairy, fish and eggs. Our massive network of agriculture universities run “animal science” programs, providing billions of dollars’ worth of training, public relations, research, experimentation and sales for animal products.Our government provides subsidies to the meat, dairy, fish and egg industries far beyond what fruits, vegetables and other plant foods receive. Federal and state agriculture officials are typically connected to the meat or dairy industry. The public pays the cost of animal factories’ contamination of water and soil, and of widespread illness linked to eating animals since humans are natural herbivores.No wonder the meat, dairy, fish and egg industries have so much money for advertising, marketing and public relations, keeping humans deceived about their biological nature and what is good for them to eat.David CantorGlenside, Pa.The writer is founder and director of Responsible Policies for Animals. More

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      Climate Activists and Steve King Unlikely Allies in Iowa Pipeline Fight

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      Liberal environmentalists and conservative landowners, led by the former congressman Steve King, are pressuring Republican candidates to oppose three Midwestern pipelines.Emma Schmidt, a lifelong environmental activist in Rockwell City, Iowa, had long searched for potent allies in her fight against a massive carbon dioxide pipeline planned for her state.But she never expected to find herself at former Representative Steve King’s house, making her case as she stared up at a pistol in the paw of a taxidermied raccoon in his home office.That meeting in June between a liberal Democrat and a conservative Republican who lost his seat in Congress in 2020 after incendiary racist comments was the beginning of a left-right alliance that is trying to push the debate of the pipeline to the forefront of the heated G.O.P. presidential caucuses.“We’re putting in a whole lot of money into pipelines that are not necessary, that bulldoze their way through some of the richest farmlands in the world, to sequester CO2,” said an incredulous Mr. King on Tuesday.Steve King, a former member of Congress who lost his seat after a series of racist comments, is an unlikely ally for liberal climate activists in Iowa. Joshua Lott/Getty ImagesThe $4.5 billion Summit, $3 billion Navigator and $630 million Wolf Carbon pipelines may not be front and center next month at the first Republican presidential debate. They probably won’t be featured in super PAC advertising or mentioned during Fox News appearances. But the pipelines capture a national debate with local consequences, and they will give candidates a chance to showcase their understanding of Iowa, the first state to weigh in on the Republican nominating fight — if they can navigate the issue.The Summit, Navigator and Wolf pipelines, fueled by federal tax credits embraced by both parties, would draw carbon dioxide from the factories that turn Iowa corn into ethanol. They would snake through 3,300 miles of farmland in Iowa and other Midwestern states, then pump the planet-warming gas into the bedrock beneath Illinois and North Dakota. And they are pitched as a climate protection measure, though some experts and environmentalists say it is only a partial solution at best.Earlier this month, an Iowa woman seemed to stump the front-runner, former President Donald J. Trump, when she asked how he would “help us in Iowa save our farmland from the CO2 pipelines.”Mr. Trump stammered that he was “working on that” and that he “had a plan to totally, uh, it’s such a ridiculous situation,” before reassuring the crowd, “if we win, that’s going to be taken care of.”The moment has been laughed off as a show of Mr. Trump’s ability to bluster his way through anything, but the issue is tricky: Several of the Republican candidates have cast doubt on the established climate science and would seem disinclined to back a project aimed at reducing carbon emissions. But opposing the pipeline also means opposing Iowa’s all-important ethanol industry.The state’s popular Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, has avoided taking a public position. Opponents believe she supports the deal, which is backed by some of her biggest political contributors, including Bruce Rastetter, founder of the Summit Agricultural Group. Ms. Reynolds’s office did not respond to requests for comment.The state’s popular Republican governor, Kim Reynolds, has avoided taking a public position on the pipeline, which is backed by one of her biggest political contributors. Kelsey Kremer/The Des Moines Register, via Associated PressPowerful figures from both parties have signed with the pipeline companies, including Terry Branstad, Ms. Reynolds’s predecessor, and Jess Vilsack, the son of another former Iowa governor and the current Democratic secretary of agriculture, Tom Vilsack. Agriculture giants like John Deere and A.D.M. have invested in the efforts.Presidential candidates have tried to skirt the issue; most campaigns declined to comment, including Mr. Trump’s. But campaign aides said this week that they knew a time for choosing was coming. The first public hearings on the Summit pipeline will begin on Aug. 22 in Fort Dodge, Iowa.Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida is expecting questions later this week in a swing through the state, according to people familiar with the campaign.The left-right alliance is giving voice to Iowa landowners infuriated by the prospect that their land could be seized by eminent domain for the pipelines. Tim Baughman, who farms 330 acres with his sister in Crawford County, Iowa, brought his anti-pipeline sign to a Vivek Ramaswamy event in Dennison, eliciting a promise from the Republican entrepreneur to oppose the projects.“I’m fighting this to the end,” vowed Dan Wahl, who grows corn, soybeans and alfalfa on 160 acres near Spirit Lake, Iowa, and recently chased Summit surveyors off his land.The left-right alliance is giving voice to Iowa landowners concerned about the prospect that their land could be seized by eminent domain for the pipelines. Walker Pickering for The New York TimesSupporters — including agribusiness conglomerates and oil and gas tycoons — see the projects as a way to persuade liberal states like California it is possible to both continue ethanol production and fight global warming. If it works, so-called carbon capture and sequestration, the practice of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, could be expanded to oil and gas, extending the life of the fossil fuel economy.Dean Ferguson, president of the Canada-based Wolf Carbon Solutions’s American subsidiary, said in a statement that he was hopeful that the pipeline planned from Iowa to Illinois would be built through voluntary easements.“Our approach is to build lasting relationships with landowners, so we can work together for years to come,” he said.In a statement, Summit Carbon Solutions said 75 percent of Iowa landowners along the project route had signed voluntary easements “and more are signing every day.”To opponents, the pipelines are dangerous, taxpayer-subsidized boondoggles that will destroy farmland and do nothing to curb global warming. A carbon dioxide pipeline ruptured in tiny Satartia, Miss., in 2020, sending 40 people to the hospital, forcing the evacuation of more than 300 others and releasing more than 31,000 barrels of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.“Climate change money should be spent on things that are proven to actually work,” said Jessica Mazour, the conservation program coordinator of the Sierra Club in Iowa, who is helping to unite environmental activists with conservative farmers who doubt climate change is real.The unusual alliance can be strained. Sherri Webb, 73, who owns 40 acres of farmland in Shelby County, Iowa, said she had her doubts about climate change: “I don’t believe it’s as bad as some people are thinking.” If anything, she added, she worries more about taking carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and away from her crops.But it was the threat of eminent domain that got her involved in the fight against the Summit pipeline. Summit Carbon Solutions says the pipeline on her land would be buried four feet deep, covered with top soil and reseeded. But her climate-friendly, no-till farm has been in her family for 123 years and hasn’t had the soil turned in decades. The pipeline digging, she said, will bring heavy diesel-powered equipment onto her property, and may cause erosion and crop loss for years. .Sherri Webb, who owns 40 acres of farmland in Shelby County, Iowa, says it was worries about losing land to eminent domain that got her involved in the fight against the pipeline. Walker Pickering for The New York TimesMs. Schmidt is fine with climate skepticism. “A key tenet for change,” she said, “is to meet people where they’re at.”Mr. King was first ousted from his committee assignments, then defeated in a primary challenge, after a series of racist comments culminated in an interview with The New York Times in which he asked, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?”But Ms. Schmidt said that Mr. King, after 18 years in Congress, remained influential in conservative western Iowa.“I certainly never thought we’d be in a position to have a meeting where you have incredibly liberal socialists teaming with very right-wing QAnon believers,” she continued. “People have to open their minds a little bit, and sometimes they have to shut their mouths.”How Republican presidential candidates respond is, at this point, anyone’s guess. Despite Mr. Trump’s more recent comments, when he was president, his administration said it had no plan to stop the pipelines. In fact, a tax credit created in 2008 to incentivize carbon capture programs like Summit, Navigator and Wolf was expanded by a budget law in 2018 that Mr. Trump signed, and expanded again by a tax bill signed by Mr. Trump in 2020. The credit was expanded yet again by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.Mr. Rastetter has donated around $10,000 to Mr. Trump’s campaigns since 2016, along with the hundreds of thousands he has donated to national and state Republican interests over the past 15 years.Officials at Navigator declined to comment.Critics say Mr. Trump has every reason to oppose the pipeline now. He has called climate change a “hoax” devised by China, so the pipelines are billed as a solution to a problem he does not recognize. Even better, he could use his stated opposition to continue a feud with Ms. Reynolds, whom he has blasted for refusing to endorse him, said Jane Kleeb, a Nebraska Democrat and anti-pipeline activist who has been pressing Mr. Trump to get involved.“There’s no downside for him,” she said.When Mr. Ramaswamy, who has called climate activism a cult, was asked about the issue last month in Davenport, Iowa, he dismissed the pipelines as a solution in search of a problem.But in an interview this week, Mr. Ramaswamy did not blame economic and political interests in Iowa. They are merely responding to incentives set by the federal government, large states like California, and even climate-conscious European nations, he said.“The debate in Iowa is just collateral damage,” he said.Other candidates might have a tougher time threading that needle. The companies backing the pipelines frame them as a salvation for ethanol, which Iowa corn farmers depend on, in a world increasingly hostile to internal combustion engines. One candidate, Gov. Doug Burgum of North Dakota, does not have the luxury of silence. He has already championed the Summit pipeline, which would end in his state, telling The Bismarck Tribune in May that two carbon dioxide pipelines have operated safely in the state for years.“And then now it’s like these are the most dangerous things in the world,” he scoffed. More