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      Biden to Sign Bill Allowing Chip Projects to Skirt Key Environmental Review

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      The legislation, which would weaken federal environmental reviews for certain semiconductor manufacturing projects, has divided Democrats.More than two years ago, President Biden signed a law that aimed to ramp up the nation’s production of semiconductors by offering generous subsidies and tax credits to companies. Since then, chip manufacturers have invested billions of dollars into new plants across the country.But industry groups, along with federal officials, have long warned that lengthy federal environmental reviews could delay manufacturing projects for months or years, which could slow the country’s ability to scale up its chip manufacturing capacity.In the coming days, Mr. Biden is set to sign a bill that would weaken federal environmental reviews for certain semiconductor manufacturing projects that receive subsidies through the 2022 CHIPS and Science Act. The bill, which has divided Democrats, underscores the challenges facing Mr. Biden as he tries to advance his economic agenda alongside his ambitious climate goals.The legislation would exempt qualifying chip projects from reviews under the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, which requires federal agencies to assess the potential environmental effects of proposed major federal actions before they can proceed. The House passed the bill last week, and the Senate unanimously passed it in December.Proponents say the legislation would help to expedite the construction of chip manufacturing facilities, which would strengthen the U.S. economy and help to reduce the nation’s dependence on other countries for critical chips that can power items as varied as smartphones, cars and weapons systems. They say that projects will still have to comply with various federal, state and local environmental regulations and permitting requirements.Democrats who oppose the bill, however, say it would allow companies to skirt an important step aimed at reducing potential harms to the environment and workers. They argue that taxpayer-funded projects should be subject to a more holistic federal environmental review process, which would allow for more transparency and community input.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Exploding Pagers Deliver a Supply Chain Warning

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      The attacks on Hezbollah in Lebanon are likely to generate greater momentum for moving factory production closer to home.The lethal detonation of hand-held pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah militants this week in Lebanon demonstrated powerful spycraft, but it also raised questions about a gaping vulnerability in the global supply chain.That chain is astonishingly complex. So complex that it is probably beyond the powers of governments, corporations and other interested institutions to police. Even the most sophisticated participants are often unclear on who they are relying on for critical parts and raw materials, or where the risks lie.The clear lesson of the supply chain upheavals that accompanied the pandemic was that the longer the journey entailed in making any product, the greater the chance that something might go awry, inflicting delay and higher costs.Now there’s a potent yet related concern: The more complicated the journey, the greater the exposure to mischief.Every movement along the way, and every additional company brought into the manufacturing process represents an opportunity for those pursuing violent agendas to insinuate themselves into the works and weaponize the product.“Companies must decide which level of security must be implemented in their supply chains,” Hannah Kain, the chief executive of ALOM, a global supply chain company, told DealBook. “We just moved several notches out on the paranoia scale.”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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      What to Know About Springfield, Where Thousands of Haitian Migrants Have Settled

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      Businesses needed workers, and Haitians, many already authorized to work, heard living costs were low. But the newcomers have strained resources, and that has fueled tension.Over the last few years, many immigrants from Haiti have settled in Springfield, Ohio, drawn by the low cost of living and plentiful jobs. But the pace and volume of Haitian newcomers have strained local resources and stirred some tensions. And now, ahead of the presidential election, the city has found itself caught up in the fiery debate over immigration.JD Vance, the Republican nominee for vice president, invoked Springfield in July to criticize the Biden administration’s border policies. That month, the city’s mayor and manager went on the cable news program “Fox & Friends” calling for assistance to handle an influx that they blamed on the federal government. Then, during the presidential debate last week, former President Donald J. Trump repeated a debunked claim about Haitians in Springfield abducting and eating household pets.Jamie McGregor, left, the chief executive of McGregor Metal, an automotive parts maker in Springfield, talks with Daniel Campere, a Haitian worker.Maddie McGarvey for The New York TimesWhat’s behind the rise of Haitians in Springfield?Thousands of new jobs had been created there, thanks to a successful effort by the city’s leadership and Chamber of Commerce to attract new business to Springfield, which sits between Columbus and Dayton. Once a manufacturing hub, Springfield saw its economy shrink after factories closed and jobs migrated overseas. By about 2015, its population had dwindled to under 60,000, from about 80,000 in the late 1960s and early 1970s.Companies that set up shop, however, confronted a dire labor shortage.Haitians in Florida, Haiti and South America heard from friends and family about Springfield and its need for workers. They began arriving to take jobs in warehouses, manufacturing and the service sector, and employers urged the new workers to encourage other Haitians to join them.What started as a trickle swelled to a surge after the Covid-19 pandemic, coinciding with deepening political and economic instability in Haiti after the assassination of the president in 2021.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Boeing Workers Go on Strike: What to Know

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      Thousands of Boeing workers in Washington State and Oregon walked off the job on Friday in the first strike at the plane maker in 16 years.Boeing is facing a strike that threatens to disrupt plane production, after workers overwhelmingly voted to reject a tentative contract their unions had reached with the company.Thousands of workers walked off the job in the Seattle and Portland, Ore., regions on Friday, a move that is likely to stall operations at factories where Boeing manufactures most of its commercial planes. While the deal their unions struck with the company on Sunday included double digit pay raises and improvements to benefits, 95 percent of workers rejected the proposed contract, opting instead to leverage a strike to push for more.Here’s what else to know about the company’s first strike since 2008:How many workers are on strike?Boeing, one of the largest exporters in the United States, employs a total of nearly 150,000 people across the country — almost half of them in Washington State — and more than 170,000 people worldwide. The contract that spurred Friday’s strike covers about a fifth of the company’s employees.A vast majority of the 33,000 workers under the contract are represented by District 751 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, Boeing’s largest union. Most of that union’s members work on commercial airplanes in the Seattle area. Workers in the Portland, Ore., area, who are represented by the union’s smaller District W24, are also on strike.What prompted them to walk off the job?The leaders of the unions representing the workers on strike reached a tentative deal with Boeing on Sunday that would have secured raises of 25 percent over four years, along with improvements to health care and retirement benefits. The company also committed to building its next commercial plane in the Pacific Northwest.But workers’ overwhelming rejection of that tentative contract reflects their willingness to fight for more, in large part to make up for concessions made in past talks, including the loss of pension benefits a decade ago. The unions started the talks by asking for raises of 40 percent.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Cómo el TLCAN arruinó la política de EE. UU.

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      [Estamos en WhatsApp. Empieza a seguirnos ahora]En mayo del año pasado, Marcus Carli, director de la fábrica Master Lock de Milwaukee, Wisconsin, convocó por sorpresa una reunión con la junta directiva del sindicato local 469 de United Auto Workers (UAW, por su sigla en inglés). Varios directivos del sindicato, que representa a los trabajadores de la planta, se reunieron con Carli y un ejecutivo de la empresa matriz de Master Lock en una pequeña sala de conferencias. Carli llevó a un guardia de seguridad. “Está aquí para protegerme”, les dijo Carli a los representantes sindicales. Cuando el guardia se sentó, Yolanda Nathan, la nueva presidenta del sindicato, se fijó en su pistola. “En ese momento pensé: ‘Ah, vamos a perder nuestro trabajo’”, dice. De inmediato, Carli confirmó sus peores temores. “La planta va a cerrar”, anunció. “Me dejó sin aliento”, dijo Nathan. “Nos quitó el aliento a todos”.Media hora más tarde, los trabajadores del primer turno de la planta fueron convocados a una reunión en la antigua cafetería. Una hilera de mesas separaba a los funcionarios de los trabajadores. “La planta va a cerrar”, repitió Carli. Se negó a aceptar preguntas. “Solo nos lanzaron la bomba”, dijo Jeremiah Hayes, quien trabajaba en la planta de tratamiento de aguas residuales de la empresa. Sobre todo, le molestó la barrera improvisada: “Era insultante. Nos sentíamos como animales”.Mike Bink, que empezó a trabajar en Master Lock en 1979, estaba desolado pero no sorprendido. Meses antes, un compañero cuyo trabajo consistía en fabricar placas de acero que se introducían en una máquina para fabricar un cuerpo de cerradura le dijo a Bink que ahora las placas se enviaban a la planta de Master Lock en Nogales, México. Esa fábrica se construyó en la década de 1990, no mucho después de que el presidente Bill Clinton promulgara el Tratado de Libre Comercio de América del Norte, y la empresa eliminó más de 1000 de los casi 1300 puestos sindicales de Milwaukee. “La gente salió corriendo por la puerta”, dice Bink, que entonces era presidente del Local 469. “Pensaban que la planta estaba acabada”. Bink aguantó, pero el TLCAN cambió de manera radical el equilibrio de poder entre Master Lock y sus trabajadores. “Un supervisor de la planta decía cosas como: ‘Pónganse a trabajar o la empresa cerrará todos los puestos’”, recuerda Bink. “Tras la reducción de plantilla, el sindicato perdió su influencia”.En marzo, el cierre de las instalaciones donde se fabricaron cerraduras emblemáticas durante generaciones, representó la etapa final de la larga decadencia de Milwaukee como potencia industrial, parte de un fenómeno mayor, impulsado por el TLCAN, que se ha producido en todo el país, especialmente en los estados del Cinturón del Óxido. El TLCAN eliminó los aranceles sobre el comercio entre los signatarios del tratado —Canadá, México y Estados Unidos— y permitió la libre circulación de capitales e inversiones extranjeras. Marcó el comienzo de una era de acuerdos de libre comercio que llevaron productos baratos a los consumidores y generaron una gran riqueza para los inversionistas y el sector financiero, pero también aumentó la desigualdad de ingresos, debilitó a los sindicatos y aceleró el vaciamiento de la base industrial de Estados Unidos.Mike Bink, expresidente de Local 469, que representaba a los trabajadores sindicales de Master Lock, trabajó en la planta durante 44 años. Lyndon French para The New York TimesWe 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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Boeing Says It’s Changing Type of Panel That Blew Off Alaska Airlines Jet

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      The company told regulators the changes in design and production of the door plugs would allow its warning systems to detect malfunctions.Boeing officials told regulators on Tuesday that the aircraft maker would make changes to how it designed and produced the type of panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines jet shortly after takeoff in January.Boeing told regulators that it was redesigning its door plugs — the panels that replace emergency-exit doors in certain design configurations that create more seats — so that its warning systems could detect any malfunctions.The design changes are expected to be “implemented within the year,” said Elizabeth Lund, a senior vice president for quality at Boeing, who testified on Tuesday at an investigative hearing held by the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent government investigative agency.The hearing on Tuesday revealed that Boeing employees removed a door plug from what would later be the Alaska Airlines jet to repair damaged rivets, but without any required internal authorization or paperwork detailing the removal of the panel — a critical structural element. The safety board’s investigation found earlier this year that the plane, a 737 Max 9, left the Boeing factory in Renton, Wash., missing bolts that should have held in place the door plug that blew off midair.The safety board’s chairwoman, Jennifer Homendy, suggested at the hearing that the work culture at Boeing prioritized meeting production schedules over safety standards, and led to an overtaxed work force and lapses in the production process.On Tuesday, Ms. Homendy read quotes from the board’s interviews with mechanics who have worked at the Boeing facility for years. The workers testified to board investigators that they were regularly pressured into working 10 to 12 hours a day, six to seven days a week, Ms. Homendy said.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Productivity Surges 2.3%, Beating Forecasts

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      The NewsProductivity grew at a 2.3 percent annual rate in the second quarter, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on Thursday, surpassing economists’ expectations. The pickup was a major improvement upon the sluggish 0.4 percent rate in the first quarter. And on a yearly basis, productivity increased 2.7 percent. That far exceeds prepandemic averages.An assembly line at a car plant in Michigan in April.Bill Pugliano/Getty ImagesWhy It Matters: A key to prosperity.A highly productive economy generally means businesses and workers are operating efficiently, making more money in fewer hours. In the second quarter, production was up 3.3 percent, while hours worked rose 1 percent.On a less technical level, productivity is best explained by the old axiom of “doing more with less” or the folksy virtue of “getting the biggest bang for your buck.”Economists tend to sigh with relief when they see productivity gains because it offers a potential “win-win” for workers, customers and business owners: If businesses can make more money in fewer work hours, then — according to basic economic logic — they can presumably make more dollars per hour, while also reinvesting and giving workers raises, without sacrificing profits.Being able to make more with less (or with the same amount of labor and machinery) also means businesses may not feel as much pressure to set higher prices to push profits. That, too, is welcome news after a yearslong bout of inflation.Facts to Keep in Mind: A volatile indicator.Productivity, at a basic level, is calculated as a simple ratio: the total amount of output an economy produces per hour worked by its labor force. But the output side of the equation is adjusted for inflation on a quarterly basis. That can cause volatility, in both directions.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      China’s Economy Slows Sharply as Housing Troubles Squeeze Spending

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      After a strong start to the year, spending has slumped as a real estate downturn weighs on consumers. Communist Party leaders are meeting this week to discuss what to do about it.Economic growth slumped in China through the spring after a strong start this year, according to data released on Monday, as a real estate crash caused consumers to spend more cautiously.The latest growth statistics for the world’s second-largest economy, covering April through June, put further pressure on the Communist Party as its leaders gathered on Monday in Beijing for a four-day conclave to set a course for the country’s economic future.In a country known for strict controls on the flow of information, the Chinese government is maintaining a particularly tight grip ahead of the party gathering, known as the Third Plenum, which typically takes place every five years. China’s statistical bureau canceled its usual news conference that accompanies the release of economic data and Chinese companies are mostly avoiding the release of earnings reports this week.China’s National Bureau of Statistics said that the economy grew 0.7 percent in the second quarter over the previous three months, a little below the expectations of most economists in the West. When projected out for the entire year, the data indicates that China’s economy grew during the spring at an annual rate of about 2.8 percent — a little less than half its growth rate in the first three months of this year.The statistical bureau also revised down its estimate of growth in the first quarter. That growth rate, projected out for the full year, was about 6.1 percent, not the 6.6 percent rate that was disclosed in April.Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, is trying to win confidence in his policies at home and abroad as growth falters and the property market suffers.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? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More