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      Global dismay as supreme court ruling leaves Biden’s climate policy in tatters

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      Global dismay as supreme court ruling leaves Biden’s climate policy in tattersBiden’s election was billed as heralding a ‘climate presidency’ but congressional and judicial roadblocks mean he has little to show Joe Biden’s election triggered a global surge in optimism that the climate crisis would, finally, be decisively confronted. But the US supreme court’s decision last week to curtail America’s ability to cut planet-heating emissions has proved the latest blow to a faltering effort by Biden on climate that is now in danger of becoming largely moribund.The supreme court’s ruling that the US government could not use its existing powers to phase out coal-fired power generation without “clear congressional authorization” quickly ricocheted around the world among those now accustomed to looking on in dismay at America’s seemingly endless stumbles in addressing global heating.The US supreme court has declared war on the Earth’s future | Kate AronoffRead moreThe decision “flies in the face of established science and will set back the US’s commitment to keep global temperature below 1.5C”, said Saleemul Huq, director of the International Centre for Climate Change and Development in Bangladesh, in reference to the internationally agreed goal to limit global heating before it becomes truly catastrophic, manifesting in more severe heatwaves, floods, droughts and societal unrest.“The people who will pay the price for this will be the most vulnerable communities in the most vulnerable developing countries in the world,” Huq added.The “incredibly undemocratic Scotus ruling” indicates that “backsliding is now the dominant trend in the climate space,” said Yamide Dagnet, director of climate justice at Open Society Foundations and former climate negotiator for the UK and European Union. António Guterres, the secretary general of the United Nations who has called new fossil fuel infrastructure “moral and economic madness”, said via a spokesman that the ruling was a “setback” at a time when countries were badly off track in averting looming climate breakdown.In the 6-3 ruling, backed by the rightwing majority of justices, the supreme court did not completely negate the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) ability to regulate emissions from coal plants. But it did side with Republican-led states in stating that the government could not set broad plans to shift electricity generation away from coal because of the nebulous “major questions doctrine” that demands Congress explicitly decide on significant changes to the US economy.“The court appoints itself, instead of Congress or the expert agency, the decision-maker on climate policy,” wrote justice Elena Kagan in an unusually blunt dissenting opinion. “I cannot think of many things more frightening.”Al Gore, the former US vice-president said the ruling was the “result of decades of influence and coordination by the fossil fuel lobby and its allies to delay, obstruct, and dismantle progress toward climate solutions”.For Biden, who called the ruling “devastating”, the court’s decision is just the latest crushing jolt to what was billed as a “climate presidency” when he was elevated to the White House.Landmark legislation to bolster clean energy has stalled in Congress, largely due to the opposition of Joe Manchin, a centrist Democrat who has a coal-trading firm, and is perilously close to not being resurrected in time before midterm elections later this year in which Democrats are expected to lose their tenuous hold on Congress. The US, almost uniquely among major democracies, still has no national climate or energy policy in place.Biden’s promise to end oil and gas drilling on public land has been unfulfilled, while Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has caused gasoline prices to leap, prompting the president to urge oil companies to ramp up production, to the horror of climate campaigners.The president has vowed that the US will cut its emissions in half by 2030 but this goal, and America’s waning international credibility on climate change, will be lost without both legislation from Congress and strong executive actions. Both of these factors remain highly uncertain, with the supreme court’s ruling sharply restricting the latter option. Gina McCarthy, the White House’s top climate adviser, has admitted the administration will have to get “creative” in forcing down emissions.“Congress acting on climate was important before this decision, now it’s even more important,” said John Larsen, partner at Rhodium group, a climate and energy analysis organization. According to Rhodium, the supreme court ruling is not fatal to US climate targets but there are still 1.7bn to 2.3bn tons of greenhouse gases that will need to be prevented on top of current policy if the 2030 goal is to be met.“The EPA still has authority, although it is more narrow than it was, so they need to get moving and crank out some rules because there’s not a lot of time left,” Larsen said.“It’s entirely possible the US will meet its emissions target but we have just eight years until 2030. The ball needs to start rolling very fast, very soon, if we are to get there. Everyone needs to really step up and start delivering.”TopicsClimate crisisUS supreme courtUS Environmental Protection AgencyUS politicsJoe BidennewsReuse this content More

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      Environmentalists condemn Biden administration’s offshore drilling plan

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      Environmentalists condemn Biden administration’s offshore drilling planPolicy would ban new ocean drilling but allow up to 11 lease sales in Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s south coast Joe Biden’s administration on Friday unveiled a five-year offshore oil and gas drilling development plan that blocks all new drilling in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans within US territorial waters while allowing some lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s south coast.The plan, which has not been finalized, could allow up to 11 lease sales but gives the interior department the right to make none. It comes two days after the US supreme court curbed the power of the Environmental Protection Agency to respond to the climate crisis.Environmental groups criticized the plan, and some expressed concern that the administration was backing away from the president’s “no more drilling” pledge during a March 2020 one-on-one debate with Bernie Sanders.Biden at the time said, “No more drilling on federal lands, no more drilling, including offshore – no ability for the oil industry to continue to drill – period.”Environmental groups also argued that new leasing would impede the Biden administration’s goal to cut carbon emissions by at least 50% by 2030 in an effort to keep global heating under the threshold of 1.5C (2.7F).“President Biden campaigned on climate leadership, but he seems poised to let us down at the worst possible moment,” said Brady Bradshaw, senior oceans campaigner at the Center for Biological Diversity. “The reckless approval of yet more offshore drilling would mean more oil spills, more dead wildlife and more polluted communities. We need a five-year plan with no new leases.”Wenonah Hauter of Food & Water Watch said: “President Biden has called the climate crisis the existential threat of our time, but the administration continues to pursue policies that will only make it worse.”On Friday, the interior secretary, Deb Haaland, said she and the president “had made clear our commitment to transition to a clean energy economy”. The department’s proposal, she said, was “an opportunity for the American people to consider and provide input on the future of offshore oil and gas leasing”.California passes first sweeping US law to reduce single-use plasticRead moreThe proposal to sell off 11 leases must go through a series of reviews and a period of public comment that is likely to be contentious. Most of the new leases would be offered in parts of the western and central Gulf of Mexico, far from where legislators have outlawed new drilling near Florida.The executive director of Healthy Gulf, Cyn Sarthou, said the organization was troubled by the apparent change of policy.“Now is not the time to continue business as usual,” Sarthou said. “The continuing threat posed by climate change requires the nation to focus on a transition to renewable energy.”Nearly 95% of US offshore oil production and 71% of offshore natural gas production occurs in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council. About 15% of oil production comes from offshore drilling.The proposed leases come after sales in two regions of the Gulf were abandoned because of legal challenges.Advocates for the oil industry welcomed the new proposal, including the Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.“Our allies across the free world are in desperate need of American oil and gas,” Manchin said in a statement. “I am disappointed to see that ‘zero’ lease sales is even an option on the table.”One of the proposed new leases could be granted in Alaska’s Cook Inlet, an area that is already highly vulnerable to the effects of climate breakdown. “This decision is incredibly disappointing in the face of ongoing climate impacts that are already being deeply felt by our community around Alaska,” said the advocacy director at Cook Inletkeeper, Liz Mering.Mering added: “Alaskans have worked to ensure that Lower Cook Inlet remains this incredible place for our fisheries and tourism industry, which support a thriving local economy. Thirty-three years after the horrific Exxon Valdez disaster, Alaskans still remember and recognize the risk of more oil fouling our waters, killing our fish and hurting Alaskans.”The proposal came a day after the administration held its first auction of onshore lease sales, drawing bids of $22m from energy companies seeking drilling rights on about 110 square miles of public land across Colorado, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Utah and Wyoming.After the sale, the Western Environmental Law Center attorney Melissa Hornbein said: “Overwhelming scientific evidence shows us that burning fossil fuels from existing leases on federal lands is incompatible with a livable climate.”TopicsBiden administrationJoe BidenOilGasUS politicsCommoditiesClimate crisisnewsReuse this content More

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      Why Joe Biden’s Green Energy Policy is Dead

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      The Fair Observer website uses digital cookies so it can collect statistics on how many visitors come to the site, what content is viewed and for how long, and the general location of the computer network of the visitor. These statistics are collected and processed using the Google Analytics service. Fair Observer uses these aggregate statistics from website visits to help improve the content of the website and to provide regular reports to our current and future donors and funding organizations. The type of digital cookie information collected during your visit and any derived data cannot be used or combined with other information to personally identify you. Fair Observer does not use personal data collected from its website for advertising purposes or to market to you.As a convenience to you, Fair Observer provides buttons that link to popular social media sites, called social sharing buttons, to help you share Fair Observer content and your comments and opinions about it on these social media sites. These social sharing buttons are provided by and are part of these social media sites. They may collect and use personal data as described in their respective policies. Fair Observer does not receive personal data from your use of these social sharing buttons. It is not necessary that you use these buttons to read Fair Observer content or to share on social media. More

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      The Guardian view on Biden’s risky gamble: betting on lowering oil prices | Editorial

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      The Guardian view on Biden’s risky gamble: betting on lowering oil pricesEditorialThe climate agenda risks being derailed by energy market disruptions caused by Russia’s war in Ukraine Joe Biden’s trip to Saudi Arabia this month highlights the paradox of American power. The US has the economic heft to punish an opponent – but not enough to alter the behaviour of a determined adversary. Sanctions will see Russia’s economy contract by 9% next year. But Washington needs more nations to join its camp to halt Moscow’s brutal invasion of Ukraine. Mr Biden has been forced to prioritise war objectives over ethics in meeting Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who the CIA says ordered the barbaric murder of the prominent journalist Jamal Khashoggi.The havoc that Russia’s war has caused on the world’s energy markets is contributing to an economic crisis that is playing into the hands of Mr Biden’s domestic opponents. This highlights the west’s failure to confront the climate emergency with a less carbon-intensive economic model. The green agenda risks being derailed by sky-high hydrocarbon prices. This scenario could have been averted if western nations had accelerated their net zero agendas by driving down energy demand – the lack of UK home insulation is one glaring failure – and spending on renewables to achieve energy security. Instead, this week the G7 watered down pledges to halt fossil fuel investment over fears of winter energy shortages as Moscow squeezes supplies.Boycotts and bans against Russia, even as they take a toll on the global economy, will cause ordinary Russians hardship. But this has not moved Vladimir Putin. Soaring crude prices fuel Moscow’s war machine. A price cap on Russia’s petroleum exports might choke off the cash. But a concern is that China and India will buy Mr Putin’s oil at a price that still lets the Kremlin profit. Clever technical solutions mask hard choices. Sanctions drive up energy prices for consumers unless there are alternative supplies available. Right now, to bring down oil prices means producing more planet-destroying energy. That requires US engagement with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, both of which bear responsibility for the disastrous Yemen war. Washington might have to woo Venezuela and Iran, nations which will play Moscow off against the west.The US is pursuing a three-pronged strategy: increasing pressure on Russia; getting more oil into markets to bring prices down; and allowing central banks to raise interest rates to levels that look as if they might cause a recession. The latter is designed to signal to oil producers that energy prices will collapse. The painful recessions of the 1970s and early 1980s played a part in bringing down oil prices after energy shocks – and contributed to the Soviet Union’s disintegration. But this took 15 years. Mr Putin’s Russia may not be as powerful as its forerunner. It might be more brittle than the Soviet Union. But there are few signs of imminent collapse.As the west seeks to reduce its reliance on Russian hydrocarbons, there seems to be a global “gold rush” for new fossil fuel projects defended as temporary supply measures. The risk, with the US as the largest hydrocarbon producer, is that the world becomes locked into an irreversible climate catastrophe. Europe might become as reliant on US gas as it once was on Russian gas. Donald Trump proved America could be an unreliable ally. Rightwing supreme court justices have hobbled Mr Biden’s power to limit harmful emissions. Meanwhile, China has emerged as a world leader in renewable energy as well as the metals on which it depends. Mr Biden had wanted to transition the US away from oil. Yet during his time in office the sector’s market value has doubled because prices have risen. Jarringly, as the climate emergency grows ever more urgent, fossil fuel appears the pivot on which the war in Ukraine will turn.TopicsUkraineOpinionClimate crisisJoe BidenUS politicsSaudi ArabiaMohammed bin SalmanOileditorialsReuse this content More

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      The US supreme court has declared war on the Earth’s future | Kate Aronoff

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      The US supreme court has declared war on the Earth’s futureKate AronoffIn a major environmental case, the court has made clear that it would rather represent the interests of corporations and the super-rich than the needs and desires of the vast majority of Americans – or people on Earth In remarks to the first Earth Day gathering in 1970, the Maine senator Edmund Muskie made the case for the Clean Air Act – a bill he helped draft – in stark terms. “There is no space command center, ready to give us precise instruction and alternate solutions for survival on our spaceship Earth,” he told the crowd. “Our nation – and our world – hang together by tenuous bonds which are strained as they have never been strained before – and as they must never be strained again. We cannot survive an undeclared war on our future.”In its Thursday ruling on West Virginia v EPA – in line with a string of decisions that will make life here more dangerous – the US supreme court all but declared that war, curtailing the Environmental Protection Agency’s ability to regulate power plants under a provision of the Clean Air Act and – more worryingly – striking an opening blow to the government’s ability to do its job.It hasn’t done so alone. The foundations for today’s ruling, like the other disastrous ones delivered this term, were laid well before Muskie gave his speech in Philadelphia. Along with the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act – passed during the Nixon administration – was a last gasp of the New Deal order, putting the government to work on an audacious and unprecedented task. Muskie hoped, as he said that day, that it might bring about “a society that will not tolerate slums for some and decent houses for others, rats for some and playgrounds for others, clean air for some and filth for others” through “planning more effective and just laws and more money better spent”.That approach to governance is precisely what a coterie of rightwing philanthropists and legal activists found so threatening, and why they became a core part of the right’s decades-long crusade against the kinder, bigger state.The crowning achievement of that crusade was the election of Ronald Reagan, who proved to be a useful cipher for fossil fuel-funded thinktanks and neoliberal economists to get their message out. It was none other than Justice Neil Gorsuch’s mother who helped Reagan try to strip the federal government’s environmental protection apparatus for parts. As Reagan’s pick to lead the EPA, Anne M Gorsuch made it her personal mission to shrink the body tasked with enacting the Clean Air Act. She railed against what she described as a “set of commands from Congress”. Looking back on her term, Gorsuch – who slashed the agency’s budget by a quarter – took pride in having helmed the “only agency in Washington that was truly practicing New Federalism”, devolving as many of its responsibilities as possible down to the states. Following in her footsteps, Judge Gorsuch has railed against the Chevron Doctrine that’s been a main target of the conservative legal movement (not overturned today, thankfully), saying it allowed “executive bureaucracies to swallow huge amounts of core judicial and legislative power”.But the roots of this ruling run deeper than Neil Gorsuch wanting to make mom proud. Polluters have always been happy to throw small fortunes at the right’s quest for minority rule, keen to protect fossil fuel profits and their ability to dump waste into the air and water from pesky things like democracy. As Nancy MacLean writes in Democracy in Chains, Charles Koch took a special interest in destroying public education, thus maintaining de facto segregation, before leading the charge against climate policy at every level of government. He continues to be a generous funder of the Federalist Society, an instrumental force in building and filling the pipeline of clerks, judges and cases that has created the judicial branch as we know it, and rulings like the one that overturned Roe v Wade last week. Secretive dark-money outfits like Donors Trust, as well as Chevron and the Scaife Foundation – furnished by old oil and aluminum money – have joined him.West Virginia v EPA itself was brought with the help of the Republican Attorneys General Association, a network of state attorneys general whose own funders include the country’s biggest fossil fuel companies and the beleaguered coal barons who had the most to lose from the modest power plant regulations. They also spent $150,000 sponsoring Trump’s rally on 6 January.The interests of the country’s wealthiest residents and corporations are at odds with the vast majority of people who live here. Luckily for the right, a political system designed by slaveholders provides an easy on ramp to concretize minority rule, encasing their power within definitionally undemocratic institutions. With a young, ideological rightwing majority on the court, there’s no telling how far they might go. And there’s not much that can stop them.Gorsuch, ironically, put it well in his concurring opinion. But the line applies better to him and his colleagues than to the federal bureaucrats he was railing against: “a republic – a thing of the people – would be more likely to enact just laws than a regime administered by a ruling class of largely unaccountable ‘ministers’.”
      Kate Aronoff is a staff writer at the New Republic and the author of Overheated: How Capitalism Broke the Planet – And How We Fight Back
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      Earthly Order: ‘mercurial professor’ with urgent ideas on climate change

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      Earthly Order: ‘mercurial professor’ with urgent ideas on climate changeIn his ambitious new book, distinguished professor Saleem Ali tries to bridge the gap between politics and science to help plan for a safer future Saleem Ali – whose Twitter bio begins “Mercurial Professor” – is not trying to be the new Stephen Hawking.“People buy all these theoretical physics books in droves because they think having them on the shelves will make them look smart,” opines the distinguished professor of energy and the environment at the University of Delaware. “A Brief History of Time is a very difficult book to read.”Poisoned legacy: why the future of power can’t be nuclearRead moreAli believes his own, anecdote-filled book is far more accessible. Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life is an ambitious effort to bridge the gap between politics and science, drawing on his experience as a National Geographic field explorer who has worked in more than 150 countries.Ali has three passports, having been born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, moved to Pakistan aged nine and lived in Australia for several years. In a phone interview from Delaware, he happily ruffles feathers by defending nuclear power, suggesting that democracies can learn lessons from autocracies and attacking the last sacred space on television: the nature documentary.“Some of these nature biodiversity documentaries can, in fact, create a problem because they lead to niche thinking,” he says. “They are good for some things like biodiversity conservation but they are not making the connections often that you need to do.”Indeed, the 48-year-old revels in complexity and loathes dumbing down – even if it means frustrating literary agents. “When I was writing the book, agents would ask me, ‘What’s your one argument?’ I’d say, ‘You know, I’m writing a book about earth systems, I can’t have one argument. I have to approach the issues with nuance.’ This is the problem we have, unfortunately, in terms of communication of environmental issues.”To illustrate the point, Ali cites predictions that Dubai in the United Arab Emirates will soon be so hot that it will be uninhabitable. “That is such a ludicrous statement from the point of view of looking at how humans have interacted with the environment,” he contends.“Most cities in the western world are uninhabitable in winter without infrastructure, including New York City or London – if you didn’t have heating you wouldn’t be able to survive or you could have a very short existence with hypothermia.“We have developed adaptive mechanisms so to say that Dubai would be uninhabitable in summer without air conditioning makes no sense from the point of view of earth systems. But it makes a good headline because people immediately start panicking and they’re like, ‘Oh my goodness, it’s becoming so bad.’”Humanity will have to adapt, he argues, for example through different types of architecture and more subterranean dwellings. He believes this is the pragmatic way forward in responding to some climate crisis thresholds that are now irreversible – while still aggressively reducing dependence on fossil fuels and refusing to surrender to the worst-case scenario.“If we frame the conversation as, look, this is going to be a future which is not ideal, we wish we had not gone that pathway, we wish we had reduced emissions, but now we need to figure out what’s the best way to adapt to this new future, that would be much more constructive and realistic to work through with some of the people who have been climate deniers.“But it wouldn’t mean complacency. You still need a lot of action around it. That’s where I feel as though we’ve been remiss in attacking this issue.”Ali is among the voices who contend that nuclear power, long anathema to many on the left, deserves a second look. It currently provides about a fifth of electricity in the US, accounting for about half the country’s carbon-free energy, and some companies – including one started by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates – are developing smaller, cheaper reactors that could supplement the grid.But the US has no long-term plan for managing or disposing of radioactive waste that can persist in the environment for thousands of years. Nuclear disasters at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island, Chernobyl in Ukraine and Fukushima in Japan have cast a long shadow. Although countries such as France are sticking with the technology or planning to build more plants, others, including Germany, are phasing out their reactors.Ali argues: “There has been a completely emotional kneejerk response to Fukushima, especially in Germany, which they are realising now was a mistake. If you look at the actual science in terms of the natural order of how energy is extracted from materials, nuclear energy is the most energy-dense resource.“If you look at the data in terms of the the morbidity and mortality of Fukushima, you had not a single person die of radiation exposure; they died of the tsunami. The International Atomic Energy Agency published a report last year which showed that there were no cancer clusters around there either. And yet you had an entire energy policy recrafted. That is why Germany is in this dependency situation.”Indeed, Ali does not believe that western democracies have all the right answers. He suggests that for decades their leaders have been talking about climate in a fashion that is too narrow, failing to join dots in the public imagination. He is donating all royalties from the book to environmental literacy programmes in developing countries.“There was a strategic mistake made in terms of framing it just as climate change. I always like, with my students, to talk about global environmental change. We’re talking about many aspects of the global system which are changing. When people think of climate change, immediately it is just resonating as, ‘Oh, are we getting more heat or cold?’“That’s not really what’s going on. We’re talking about water scarcity. We’re talking about the ways in which energy is going to be delivered. If we had framed the conversation around global environmental change, it would have been easier to be able to figure out all of these interconnections.”Ali, who has a PhD in environmental planning, continues: “We assume that democratic systems are going to be able to deliver efficient outcomes but the reality is democratic systems are often very short-term-oriented because they are driven by election cycles.“We have the same problem with reference to even business decision making, especially publicly traded companies which are driven by quarterly earnings reports. When you’re talking about long-range impacts, there is definitely a disconnect between both aspects.“We threw the baby out with the bathwater when we started to lobby against planning. ‘Planning’ had these connotations that it was going back to somehow centrally planned economies but you need a certain bureaucracy to continue the planning programmes and we needed to have planning independent of the political apparatus. That’s been another reason why, unfortunately, we have ended up in this current impasse with climate change.”Do autocracies, which Joe Biden warns are locked in a global struggle with democracies, do it better? Ali, whose book draws a contrast between China and India, says: “China is going to have problems in terms of their dependence on coal but there is definitely a much more technically oriented approach to decision making in China. Even if you take out the part about the central planning, the Confucian approach has been much more around let’s bring technocracy to the mix.”Public transport in a classic example, he believes, with China deciding to switch from planes to trains as the dominant mode between major cities and getting it done within a decade. “Here in the US we’re stuck with Amtrak, which they have still not been able to change because there isn’t this sense of let’s work through all of the technical details and make it happen based on those decisions.“That’s also linked to the fact we have a very litigious culture that makes it very challenging to be able to develop new projects. Unfortunately, in current democracies the actual process of getting feedback and stakeholder engagement and litigation becomes an end in itself. There is just no point at which you draw the line and say, OK, now we have to move forward.”This, he continues, is one of the reasons that the outsider businessman Donald Trump was an attractive proposition to millions of frustrated voters in the 2016 presidential election. “People saw that at least there was this willingness to make a decision. Much as I lament many aspects of his policies – building the wall – there was a decision.“In environmental discourse, we often talk about the precautionary principle, that you have to be careful about things, but if you go to the extreme, it becomes paralysis because you can’t make any kind of forward movement. That’s the main problem we have had.”But no, Ali is not calling for dictatorship in America, as he insists: “Democracies can correct that. I don’t see this as being something that only autocracies can do. We just need democracies to be made more efficient and form processes where decisions are based on technical knowledge and, after a certain point, that technical knowledge should trump – for want of a better word – negotiations.”By Ali’s lights, environmental awareness is no longer enough; environmental literacy is critical to the survival of the planet. Or as he puts it: “Depth in understanding of complexity is essential for functional order on Earth.”
      Earthly Order: How Natural Laws Define Human Life is out on 15 July
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      Giuliani associate Lev Parnas handed 20 months in prison for campaign finance fraud – as it happened

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      Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani who was a figure in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation, was sentenced Wednesday to a year and eight months in prison for fraud and campaign finance crimes.Parnas, who had helped Giuliani connect with Ukrainian figures as part of a campaign to dig up dirt on President Joe Biden’s son, had sought leniency on the grounds that he’d helped the Congressional probe, Associated Press reported.But prosecutors said the Soviet-born businessman’s aid was in response to a subpoena and deserved little credit.Instead, they asked the judge to focus on a jury’s finding that Parnas used the riches of a wealthy Russian to make illegal donations to politicians who might aid the launch of a legal recreational-marijuana business.Prosecutors had asked that Parnas be sentenced to more than six years.An October conviction also supported a finding that he made illegal donations in 2018 to jump-start a new energy company.In March, Parnas pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud, admitting that between 2012 and 2019 he conspired with another person to give investors false information about a Florida-based business, Fraud Guarantee.Fraud Guarantee was promoted as a company that could protect investors against fraud. Giuliani accepted $500,000 from the company to act as a consultant, but was not accused of wrongdoing or charged with any crimes.The criminal case against Parnas was not directly related to his work acting as a fixer for Giuliani as the former New York City mayor tried to get Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden’s son, Hunter, before he was elected president.Giuliani, who was working at the time as a personal lawyer for then-President Donald Trump, has said he knew nothing about the crimes of Parnas and others.That’s it from us today, thanks for reading. Here’s how the day unfolded in Washington: Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani and a key figure in Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation, was sentenced to a year and eight months in prison for fraud and campaign finance crimes. Parnas used the riches of a wealthy Russian to make illegal donations to politicians who might aid the launch of a legal recreational-marijuana business. Trump-backed candidates had a mixed Tuesday in Republican primary elections around the country. Colorado voters largely rejected most Trump-supporting candidates in Tuesday’s GOP primaries, although Lauren Boebert, the extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman, won her bid for re-election. Moderate Republicans held off challenges from more extreme challengers in Utah, Mississippi and Oklahoma, but two Trump-endorsed officials triumphed in Illinois.The Supreme Court will issue two key decisions tomorrow which could impact both the climate crisis and immigration. The court has been weighing how much power the Environmental Protection Agency should have to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants, and is also considering whether Joe Biden can end Remain in Mexico, the controversial Trump-era policy which sends asylum seekers to Mexico while they wait for their immigration cases to be heard.Ken Paxton, the Texas Attorney General, said he would be “willing and able” to defend a law which banned sodomy, in the wake of the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade.In an interview with News Nation, Paxton was asked about Lawrence v Texas, a 2003 Supreme Court ruling that overturned a state anti-sodomy law and made all such laws invalid nationwide.Last week Clarence Thomas, in a concurring opinion following the Supreme Court overturning the right to abortion, wrote that the court should also “reconsider” the Lawrence v Texas ruling.In the News Nation Paxton was asked if he would “feel comfortable defending a law that once again outlawed sodomy,” as well as gay marriage and birth control.“I mean, there’s all kinds of issues here, but certainly, the Supreme Court has stepped into issues that I don’t think there was any constitutional issues dealing with, they were legislative issues,” Paxton said. “This [abortion] is one of those issues, and there may be more.”The News Nation host then asked Paxton how he would act if Texas passed a law banning sodomy.Paxton said: “My job is to defend state law and I’ll continue to do that. That is my job under the Constitution and I’m certainly willing and able to do that.”Joe Biden has announced that the US will increase its military forces across Europe with more land, sea and air deployments, as he gathered with Nato leaders for a two-day summit in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.Arriving at the meeting in Madrid, the US president announced the stationing of a brigade of 3,000 combat troops in Romania, two squadrons of F-35 fighters in the UK and two navy destroyers in Spain.“The US and its allies are going to step up. We’re stepping up. We’re proving that Nato is more needed now than it ever has been,” Biden said in a short statement he read out before the first summit meeting began.Biden’s announcement is expected to be followed by further commitments by Nato members to a strengthening of forces on the alliance’s eastern flank, which was being discussed by Nato leaders on Wednesday morning.The US president also said the US fifth army corps would establish a permanent base in Poland, extra troops would be committed to the Baltic states and extra air defence systems would be stationed in Germany and Italy.It was, Biden said, a response to Russian aggression, adding: “Together with our allies, we are going make sure Nato is ready to meet threats across every domain, land, air and in the sea”, which came “at a moment when Putin has shattered peace in Europe and the very tenets of rules-based order”.The US sent a further 20,000 troops to Europe earlier this year, taking the total based across the continent to over 100,000. Wednesday’s announcements come on top of that and Biden said the US would “continue to our adjust our posture” if necessary.A lawyer for Ginni Thomas, the wife of the supreme court justice Clarence Thomas, has dimmed prospects for a quick appearance before congressional investigators probing the January 6 Capitol riot, after the attorney asked for more information on her requested appearance.Ginni Thomas on June 16 expressed eagerness to speak with the House of Representatives panel investigating the 2021 assault, telling the Daily Caller she “can’t wait to clear up misconceptions.”The committee sent an invitation that day.On Tuesday, however, Thomas’ lawyer, Mark R. Paoletta, wrote to the committee that he did not “understand the need to speak with Mrs Thomas”.“Before I can recommend that she meet with you, I am asking the Committee to provide a better justification for why Mrs Thomas’s testimony is relevant to the Committee’s legislative purpose,” Paoletta wrote.Earlier this month the Washington Post reported that Thomas emailed 29 Arizona lawmakers in a bid to help overturn Trump’s 2020 election defeat.Lev Parnas, an associate of Rudy Giuliani who was a figure in President Donald Trump’s first impeachment investigation, was sentenced Wednesday to a year and eight months in prison for fraud and campaign finance crimes.Parnas, who had helped Giuliani connect with Ukrainian figures as part of a campaign to dig up dirt on President Joe Biden’s son, had sought leniency on the grounds that he’d helped the Congressional probe, Associated Press reported.But prosecutors said the Soviet-born businessman’s aid was in response to a subpoena and deserved little credit.Instead, they asked the judge to focus on a jury’s finding that Parnas used the riches of a wealthy Russian to make illegal donations to politicians who might aid the launch of a legal recreational-marijuana business.Prosecutors had asked that Parnas be sentenced to more than six years.An October conviction also supported a finding that he made illegal donations in 2018 to jump-start a new energy company.In March, Parnas pleaded guilty to conspiring to commit wire fraud, admitting that between 2012 and 2019 he conspired with another person to give investors false information about a Florida-based business, Fraud Guarantee.Fraud Guarantee was promoted as a company that could protect investors against fraud. Giuliani accepted $500,000 from the company to act as a consultant, but was not accused of wrongdoing or charged with any crimes.The criminal case against Parnas was not directly related to his work acting as a fixer for Giuliani as the former New York City mayor tried to get Ukrainian officials to investigate Biden’s son, Hunter, before he was elected president.Giuliani, who was working at the time as a personal lawyer for then-President Donald Trump, has said he knew nothing about the crimes of Parnas and others. It was a mixed Tuesday for Donald Trump-backed candidates in Republican primary elections around the country. Colorado voters largely rejected most Trump-supporting candidates in Tuesday’s GOP primaries, although Lauren Boebert, the extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman, won her bid for relection. In Illinois, Mary Miller, who had been criticized after she declared the Supreme Court’s abortion decision as a “victory for white life” – a spokesman said she had mixed up her words – won in after she was backed by Trump. Darren Bailey, who was also endorsed by Trump, won the Republican gubernatorial primary in the state. Elsewhere John Curtis, and Blake Moore, Republican congressional candidates in Utah, defeated more extreme challengers. Stephanie Bice, a congresswoman from Oklahoma who – like Moore and Curtis – voted to form the January 6 commission, won her primary bid, as did Michael Guest, in Mississippi.Stephen Breyer, the Supreme Court justice, has formally announced his retirement from the Court, effective Thursday.Breyer, who announced earlier this year that he would retire – Ketanji Brown Jackson has already been chosen to replace him – wrote to Joe Biden to confirm he would step down tomorrow.“This past January, I wrote to inform you of my intent to retire from regular active service as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, upon the Court rising for its summer recess,” Breyer wrote.“The Court has announced that tomorrow, beginning at 10 am, it will hand down all remaining opinions ready during this Term. Accordingly, my retirement from active service under the provisions of 28 U.S.C. § 371(b) will be effective on Thursday, June 30, 2022, at noon.“It has been my great honor to participate as a judge in the effort to maintain our Constitution and the Rule of Law.”‘So much joy’: Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation lauded as ray of hopeRead moreThe extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman Lauren Boebert won her primary on Tuesday night, shortly after attacking the separation of church and state under the US constitution.“I’m tired of this separation of church and state junk,” she said.A dedicated controversialist first elected in 2020, backed by Donald Trump and described by NBC News as a “Maga lightning rod”, Boebert convincingly beat Don Coram, a state senator, for the nomination to contest the midterm elections.At one event recently Coram, 74, told voters: “My politics are very similar to my driving. To the chagrin of both my wife and my Republican colleagues, I tend to crowd the center line and sometimes I veer over a bit.”In contrast, Boebert has heckled Joe Biden during the state of the union address; made racist attacks on Ilhan Omar, a Democrat from Minnesota; vowed to carry a gun on to the House floor; and voted to object to results in swing states in the 2020 presidential election.Boebert beat Coram by 31 points.Republican Lauren Boebert wins in Colorado after denouncing separation of church and stateRead moreFox News Channel is airing the January 6 committee hearings when they occur in daytime hours – and a striking number of the network’s viewers have made clear they’d rather be doing something else, according to Associated Press.During two daytime hearings last week, Fox averaged 727,000 viewers, the Nielsen company said. That compares to the 3.09 million who watched the hearings on MSNBC and the 2.21 million tuned in to CNN.It completely flips the typical viewing pattern for the news networks. During weekdays when the hearings are not taking place, Fox News routinely has more viewers than the other two networks combined, Nielsen said.Last Thursday, Fox had 1.33 million viewers for the 2 pm Eastern hour before the hearing started – slightly below its second quarter average, but on par for early summer, when fewer people are watching TV.After the hearing started, Fox’s audience’s sank to 747,000 for the 3 pm Eastern hour and even lower, to 718,000, at 4 pm. Fox cut away from the hearing at 5 pm to show its popular panel program, “The Five,” and fans immediately rewarded them: viewership shot up to 2.76 million people, Nielsen said.The apparent lack of interest explains why the Trump-friendly network stuck with its regular lineup during the committee’s only prime-time hearing, while ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN and MSNBC all showed the Washington proceedings.Presidential historian Michael Beschloss made a joke at Donald Trump’s expense, in the aftermath of Cassidy Hutchinson’s explosive testimony before the January 6 committee yesterday.This morning, Beschloss shared a photo to Twitter of the last meal that Richard Nixon ate at the White House before he resigned as president. “Nixon’s last lunch at White House, 1974,” Beschloss said of the photo. “Record shows that although he was leaving Presidency against his will, he did not throw this plate at the wall.”Nixon’s last lunch at White House, 1974. Record shows that although he was leaving Presidency against his will, he did not throw this plate at the wall. pic.twitter.com/joCuuCsTcg— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) June 29, 2022
      That appeared to be a tongue-in-cheek reference to Hutchinson’s claim that Trump had a habit of throwing food when he was angry. That habit reared its head in December 2020, when the AP published an interview with then-attorney general William Barr, who said there was no evidence of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.According to Hutchinson, she walked into the White House dining room that day to see a valet cleaning up a dirty tablecloth. She noticed ketchup dripping down the wall where a television was mounted, and a porcelain plate lay shattered on the floor.Asked whether Trump often engaged in such behavior, Hutchinson said: “There were several times throughout my tenure with the chief of staff that I was aware of him either throwing dishes or flipping the tablecloth to let all the contents of the table go onto the floor.”New York City is suing five companies it says are involved in the sale of illegal, largely untraceable “ghost guns” flowing into the city, Reuters reports:In a complaint filed in Manhattan federal court on Wednesday, New York attorneys said the companies have created a public nuisance by selling “unfinished” firearms components that purchasers can build into guns, without undergoing background checks.The result is “a proliferation of unserialized, untraceable, unlawful ghost guns in the city’s streets and homes, making the City more dangerous for both the public and for law enforcement, causing a quintessential public nuisance,” the complaint said.Arm or Ally LLC, Rainier Arms LLC, 80P Builder, Rock Slide USA LLC and Indie Guns LLC were named as defendants The companies did not immediately respond to requests from Reuters for comment.New York City wants the defendants to stop selling ghost gun components and provide records of sales into the city over the last five years. City officials said this month that gun arrests are at a 28-year high.Colorado voters rejected most Trump-supporting candidates in Tuesday’s GOP primaries, and they weren’t the only ones.In Utah Blake Moore, a first-term US congressman who voted for an independent commission to investigate the January 6 insurrection, defeated his more extreme challengers.John Curtis, a moderate Republican, also defeated a primary opponent from the right.Stephanie Bice, a congresswoman Oklahoma from who – like Moore and Curtis – voted to form the January 6 commission, won her primary bid, as did Michael Guest, in Mississippi.Tina Peters, who became nationally known after being indicted for her role in a break-in of her own county election system, lost her bid for the GOP nomination for Colorado secretary of state.Still, there were some victories for Trump.Lauren Boebert, the extremist Colorado Republican congresswoman, who has been backed by Trump, won her bid for relection, days after denouncing separation of church and state.Mary Miller, who had been criticized after she declared the Supreme Court’s abortion decision as a “victory for white life” – a spokesman said she had mixed up her words – won in Illinois after she was backed by Trump. Darren Bailey, who was also endorsed by Trump, won the Republican gubernatorial primary in the state.Andrew Giuliani, the anti-vax, Trumpite son of Rudy Giuliani, lost his bid to be governor of New York on Tuesday night.Lee Zeldin, a US congressman who, like the younger Giuliani, supported Donald Trump, defeated his opponent by 19 points, bringing to an end a chaotic, firebrand campaign by Giuliani that failed to catch on with New Yorkers.One of Giuliani’s final campaign events was marked by his father claiming a supermarket employee had assaulted him during a campaign event. Video footage showed a man patting Rudy Giuliani on the back. Giuliani Sr said he could have been killed. Eric Adams, New York City’s mayor, has suggested Giuliani, Trump’s on-again, off-again friend/lawyer/advisor, should be prosecuted for falsely reporting a crime.What Rudy Giuliani says happened at ShopRite vs. what actually happened pic.twitter.com/ZQ1Qwi1HC0— The Recount (@therecount) June 27, 2022
      Republicans in Colorado rejected two prominent candidates whose political profiles were centered on election falsehoods, in a fresh reminder that fealty to former President Donald Trump’s lies about mass voter fraud is no guarantee of success with conservative voters, Associated Press reports:Tina Peters, the Mesa County clerk who became nationally known after being indicted for her role in a break-in of her own county election system, lost her bid for the GOP nomination for Colorado secretary of state. Instead, Republicans selected Pam Anderson, a critic of Trump’s election lies and a former clerk in suburban Denver who is well-regarded among election professionals. She is now positioned to challenge Democratic Secretary of State Jena Griswold.“I will continue my fight for restoring the confidence of Colorado voters against lies and the politicians or interest groups that seek to weaponize elections administration for political advantage,” Anderson said after her victory.One of Peters’ top Colorado allies, state Rep Ron Hanks, lost his bid for the party’s Senate nomination to Joe O’Dea, a businessman who has repeatedly acknowledged that Joe Biden legitimately won the 2020 election. That was a sharp contrast with Hanks, who attended the January 6 rally in Washington, doesn’t believe Biden is a legitimate president and says he discovered a new, animating purpose fighting election fraud after 2020.Hello and welcome to the Guardian’s live coverage of the day’s political news. Here’s what we’re monitoring today:The Supreme Court is expected to give decisions today which could have lasting effects on how the US handles the climate crisis. The court has been weighing how much power the Environmental Protection Agency should have to regulate greenhouse gas emissions from power plants.Remain in Mexico, the controversial Trump-era policy which sends asylum seekers to Mexico while they wait for their immigration cases to be heard, is also on the table. The Supreme Court is due to decide whether Joe Biden can end the program, which has kept thousands of would-be immigrants in sometimes dangerous conditions across the US border.After the bombshell testimony that Donald Trump directed his supporters to march on the Capitol, despite knowing many of them were armed, the Secret Service has begun to push back. Numerous outlets have reported that members of the Secret Service are willing to testify that elements of the testimony by Cassidy Hutchinson, an aide to the then White House chief of staff, are inaccurate. More

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      The 1977 White House climate memo that should have changed the world

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      The 1977 White House climate memo that should have changed the world Years before climate change was part of national discourse, this memo to the president predicted catastropheIn 1977 Star Wars hit movie theaters, New York City had a blackout that lasted 25 hours, and the Apple II personal computer went up for sale. It was also the year that a remarkable one-page memo was circulated at the very highest levels of US government.Years before climate change was part of national discourse, this memo outlined what was known – and feared – about climate change at the time. It was prescient in many ways. Did anyone listen?By July 1977, President Jimmy Carter had only been in office for seven months, but he had already built a reputation for being focused on environmental issues. For one, by installing solar panels on the White House. He had also announced a national renewable energy plan .“We must start now to develop the new, unconventional sources of energy we will rely on in the next century,” he said in an address to the nation outlining its main goals.The climate memo arrived on his desk a few days after the Independence Day celebrations on July 4. It has the ominous title “Release of Fossil CO2 and the Possibility of a Catastrophic Climate Change.”One of the first thing that stands out is the stamp at the top, partially elided, saying THE PRESIDENT HAS SEEN.The memo’s author was Frank Press, Carter’s chief science adviser and director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy. Press was a tall, serious, geophysicist who had grown up poor in a Jewish family in Brooklyn, and was described as “brilliant” by his colleagues. Before working with the Carter administration, he had been director of the Seismological Laboratory at the California Institute of Technology, and had consulted for federal agencies including the Navy and NASA.“Carter had a great respect for Frank [Press] and for science,” said Stu Eizenstat, who served as Carter’s chief domestic policy adviser from 1977 to 1981.Press starts the memo by laying out the science of climate change as it was understood at the time.
      Fossil fuel combustion has increased at an exponential rate over the last 100 years. As a result, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 is now 12 percent above the pre-industrial revolution level and may grow to 1.5 to 2.0 times that level within 60 years. Because of the “greenhouse effect” of atmospheric CO2 the increased concentration will induce a global climatic warming of anywhere from 0.5 to 5°C.
      These far-sighted assertions were in line with the climate science that originated the previous decade, when the US government funded major science agencies focused on space, atmospheric and ocean science. Research produced for President Lyndon B Johnson in 1965 found that billions of tons of “carbon dioxide is being added to the earth’s atmosphere by the burning of coal, oil, and natural gas”.Press’s memo was on the mark. In 2021, for the first time ever, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 reached 420PPM, the halfway point to the doubling of pre-industrial CO2 levels that Press posited.
      The potential effect on the environment of a climatic fluctuation of such rapidity could be catastrophic and calls for an impact assessment of unprecedented importance and difficulty. A rapid climatic change may result in large scale crop failures at a time when an increased world population taxes agriculture to the limits of productivity.
      Press was right. We have indeed seen the catastrophic effects of a climatic fluctuation, in the form of increasingly severe weather events including droughts, heatwaves, and hurricanes of greater intensity. Meanwhile, in many parts of the world heating has already stemmed increases in agricultural productivity, and large-scale food production crises are thought to be possible.
      The urgency of the problem derives from our inability to shift rapidly to non-fossil fuel sources once the climatic effects become evident not long after the year 2000; the situation could grow out of control before alternate energy sources and other remedial actions become effective.
      This is correct. By the 2000s, the effects of climate change had become apparent in some regions in the form of more deadly heat waves and stronger floods and droughts.
      Natural dissipation of C02 would not occur for a millennium after fossil fuel combustion was markedly reduced.
      This prediction by Press was actually debunked at least a decade ago. Scientists used to believe that some warming was “baked in”, but scientists have since found that as soon as CO2 emissions stop rising, the atmospheric concentration of CO2 levels off and slowly falls.
      As you know this is not a new issue. What is new is the growing weight of scientific support which raises the CO2-climate impact from speculation to a serious hypothesis worthy of a response that is neither complacent nor panicky.
      But there were other currents mitigating against the sort of response Press calls for. “​​The story of climate policy in the US, generally, is one missed opportunities and unjustifiable delay,” said Jack Lienke, author of the book Struggling for Air: Power Plants and the “War on Coal.”Many other issues may have seemed more pressing, or simply better understood. As he writes in Struggling for Air, “At a time when Americans were still dying somewhat regularly in acute, inversion-related pollution episodes, it is unsurprising that legislators were more concerned with the known harms of sulfur dioxide and carbon monoxide than the uncertain, seemingly distant threat of climate change.”
      The authoritative National Academy of Sciences has just alerted us that it will issue a public statement along these lines in a few weeks.
      That public statement, released later that month, emphasized the importance of shifting away from fossil fuel energy and highlighted the urgency of starting to transition to new energy sources as soon as possible: “With the end of the oil age in sight, we must make long-term decisions as to future energy policies. One lesson we have been learning is that the time required for transition from one major source to another is several decades.”So what happened? When Press’s memo made it to the president’s desk, Jim Schlesinger, America’s first secretary of energy, also attached his own note in response:
      ​​My view is that the policy implications of this issue are still too uncertain to warrant Presidential involvement and policy initiatives.
      Carter seems to have heeded this warning, and did not make much progress on climate change mitigation during his presidency. Yet he did sign some significant pieces of environmental legislation, including initiating the first federal toxic waste cleanups and creating the first fuel economy standards.A significant challenge facing Carter was his own contradictory energy aims. Despite his goal of encouraging alternative energy, he also felt there was a national security interest in boosting US oil production in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis.“We realized our dependence on foreign oil was dangerous and, very importantly, alternative energy was in its infancy,” Eizenstat said. “So Carter was both doing conservation and still encouraging more domestic oil and gas as a way of reducing dependence on foreign oil,” said Eizenstat. “As with all policy, you have conflicting goals.”Still, it seems possible that if Carter had been re-elected, the world might have been in a better position regarding climate impacts today. One of the first things Reagan did after winning the election in 1981 was take down the White House solar panels. Meanwhile, the fossil fuel industry – whose scientists were already studying the ways that fossil fuels were changing the climate – started spending tens of millions of dollars sowing doubt about climate science.Did the Press memo accomplish anything at all? For one person it was in fact a “transformational moment” – this was Eizenstat himself. He says it was instrumental in his own future work on climate change, including his decision in 1997 to serve as the United States’s principal negotiator for the Kyoto global warming protocols.Those protocols set the stage for the first international effort to tackle climate policy on a global level. So even if Press’s memo had a muted impact at the time, his warning wasn’t entirely ignored.TopicsClimate crisisClimate crimesJimmy CarterUS politicsfeaturesReuse this content More