U.S. And International Politics

[Rick Plant]

Billions and trillions: Climate efforts set for big boost if Build Back Better bill passes

The Biden administration's $1 trillion infrastructure bill included historic levels of funding for climate projects, but it's the $2 trillion spending bill that has experts feeling optimistic.

For climate experts and policymakers, $1 trillion is just a start.

As the U.S. seeks to prove it’s serious about its international climate commitments, the focus now is on whether the Biden administration can pass its $2 trillion spending bill, which includes $555 billion to fight climate change and could be the new cornerstone of federal climate policy.

The $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure bill passed by Congress this month already commits historic levels of funding for climate projects. But experts say the U.S. won’t reach its climate goals or restore its international credibility unless the administration can pass its Build Back Better bill, which features a variety of other climate initiatives and calls for significant investments in clean energy.

The sizable dollar figures offer a sense of the scale of the challenge the U.S. faces in rolling back its emissions, undoing some environmental damage and preparing for more climate-related natural disasters.

“These are the biggest pieces of climate policy legislation the U.S. has seen in a decade,” said Katharine Hayhoe, a climate researcher and the chief scientist at The Nature Conservancy. “The faster we can act, the better off we’ll be, because we’re already late to the table. The time for half-measures was 30 years ago.”

The provisions are particularly timely as the U.S. tries to move past President Donald Trump’s efforts to unwind significant climate efforts by pulling the country out of the Paris Agreement and killing a slew of environmental protections.

President Joe Biden’s participation in COP26, the worldwide summit on climate policy held in Scotland this month, marked the U.S.’s return to global climate negotiations after Biden rejoined the Paris Agreement in January.

U.S. officials at the conference faced an uphill fight to restore international trust in the U.S.’s climate commitments.

As part of Biden’s updated COP26 pledge, the U.S. aims to slash greenhouse gas emissions at least 50 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. David Waskow, the director of the International Climate Initiative at the World Resources Institute, a Washington-based nonprofit research organization, said the goal was “quite ambitious,” adding that the U.S.’s return to international diplomacy on climate change was significant in itself.

“It’s critical to remember that if you go back a year, there wouldn’t have been a U.S. administration that was engaging constructively in these talks,” Waskow said.

While Biden went to COP26 projecting a new tone, the country’s ability to deliver on its 2030 targets is likely to hinge on the success of infrastructure projects and the outcome of the Build Back Better Act, which, if it passes, could wind up being significantly scaled back.

Both are needed to meet the country’s emissions goals, experts say.

The infrastructure bill will harden the country’s roadways and ports to better deal with the effects of climate change, but it offers comparatively less to reduce greenhouse gas emissions that will intensify climate change.

In Washington state, for example, projects funded by the bill are expected to help re-engineer roads and bridges for a warmer and wetter future, boost transit projects like light rail and improve stream passageways for fish struggling with climate change.

Flooding this month following record rainfall in parts of Western Washington sent landslides onto the state’s most-traveled interstate and poured floodwaters into small towns — a preview of what climate scientists expect more often.

“All of the money to some degree has a bearing on our ability to be more resilient,” said Gov. Jay Inslee, a Democrat who ran a 2020 presidential campaign centered on climate action. “But it doesn’t get us close to what we need to reduce the rate at which these floods get worse.”

The infrastructure bill will spend about $70 billion to upgrade the country’s electricity grid and $7.5 billion more to build a network of charging stations for electric vehicles, which could hasten the transition away from gas-guzzling cars.

But from Inslee’s perspective, it offers only a “step” toward progress, whereas the Build Back Better bill’s clean energy investments would be “transformative.”

The act calls for spending more than a half-trillion dollars on clean energy investments, incentives and tax credits to shift the economy away from fossil fuels.

Analysis by the independent Rhodium Group says the budget bill could reduce U.S. carbon emissions by nearly a gigaton, which would be about equivalent to removing the yearly emissions of light-duty vehicles from U.S. roadways. Combining the budget bill with the infrastructure bill and state and local regulations, the U.S. could meet Biden’s 2030 emissions target, with the budget bill representing the “lion’s share” of reductions, the analysis says.

“There’s no question that the Build Back Better Act is crucial. It can drive the U.S. a substantial distance toward achieving the 50 to 52 percent reduction,” Waskow said.

The legislation also prioritizes environmental justice by earmarking 40 percent of the overall benefits of investment for disadvantaged communities.

The infrastructure bill committed $216 million to the Bureau of Indian Affairs specifically for climate resilience projects in Indian County, according to the White House. About $130 million of the money will go toward relocation projects for tribes that need to move away from climate hazards.

Some tribal communities — including many in Alaska — may need to move in the coming decades because of climate hazards like coastal erosion, flooding and thawing permafrost, the Government Accountability Office said in a report last year.

Fawn Sharp, the vice president of the Quinault Indian Nation, whose seaside villages in Washington state face threats from tsunamis, coastal erosion and rising sea levels, estimated that her community needs at least $150 million to complete plans to uproot for higher ground — at least $20 million more than what is committed to all tribes.

“It’s unprecedented and a level of funding we’ve not seen in our lifetime,” Sharp, the president of the National Congress of American Indians, said broadly of the infrastructure bill. “While this is significant, we have a long way to go to restore tribal nations.”

Climate scientist Jonathan Foley sees reasons to feel encouraged even beyond what happens in Congress.

“Sometimes we get obsessed with these large policies, as if they’re going to save the world, but the real work of reducing emissions and addressing climate change is often lots of invisible forces working every single day,” said Foley, the executive director of Project Drawdown, a nonprofit organization that provides resources about climate solutions.

Market forces and technological advances have, for example, helped drive down the cost of solar and wind power, which in turn is contributing to the shift away from fossil fuels. Vocal opposition, led in particular by young activists, is also pressuring government officials to act, Foley said.

“Good policymakers can accelerate change, but activism, technology and markets are already getting things done on their own,” he said. “That has nothing to do with who is in the White House.”

https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/climate-change-efforts-set-big-boost-build-back-better-bill-passes-rcna6471

[Rick Plant]

Biden administration approves second major offshore wind project, to provide power to N.Y.
The administration plans to build at least 16 offshore wind energy facilities by 2025

The Biden administration said Wednesday it plans to build a wind farm off Rhode Island to supply power to New York.

The approval from the Interior Department paves the way for the country's second large-scale offshore wind farm after a similar project got underway in Massachusetts. The administration aims to put the U.S. on a path to generate 30 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030, powering about 10 million homes.

“We have no time to waste in cultivating and investing in a clean energy economy that can sustain us for generations,” Interior Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement Wednesday.

The approximately 130-megawatt project — 19 miles southeast of Block Island, Rhode Island, and 35 miles east of Montauk Point, New York — will eventually power about 70,000 homes on Long Island and create more than 300 jobs, the Biden administration said.

The Interior Department said it adopted “a range of measures” to “avoid, minimize, and mitigate potential impacts that could result from the construction and operation of the proposed project.” It said it consulted with tribes, local governments and industries.

Construction began last week on the first major offshore project — an 800-megawatt wind farm 15 miles off Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts. The project is expected to start sending power to the grid in 2023.

The administration plans to build at least 16 offshore wind energy facilities by 2025.

The U.S. is a latecomer in the global race to build offshore wind farms to lower carbon emissions. Many countries have already expanded their renewable energy capabilities using offshore wind projects.

Worldwide, 6.1 gigawatts were created by new offshore wind projects last year, according to a recent report by the Global Wind Energy Council. China led the pack, adding more than 3 gigawatts, followed by the Netherlands, with 1.5 gigawatts, and Belgium, with 706 megawatts, the report said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/biden-administration-approves-second-major-offshore-wind-project-provide-power-n1284601?icid=recommended

[Rick Plant]

Racists like Lauren Boebert have no business being in Congress. This is a woman who's been arrested several times over her lifetime and is a high school dropout. But as long as she holds up a semi automatic weapon and spouts off racist and anti Democratic rhetoric the racist maga base will always vote for degenerates like this. Boebert spouted off a racist rant at an event against a Democratic member of Congress. Then in a private conversation she doubled down with her racism. Congress needs to censure her as well. These racists have no business representing districts in America.

[Rick Plant]

What do you expect from a woman who is a High School dropout? Unfortunately, this type of behavior will never end until the GOP has respectable people in their party and I don't see that happening. The MAGA crowd like Boebert is there to mimic Donald Trump, so they will be hateful, vile, racist, and defend violence as their "message" because it plays well with the base and that's the "message" they accept. That's why Greene, Gosar, etc. act the way they do and others will all behave the same way.

'This has to stop': GOP congressman slams Lauren Boebert's 'high-school level' behavior



On Monday's edition of CNN's "OutFront," Rep. Tom Reed (R-NY) fiercely condemned the remarks by Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) suggesting that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) is a terrorist.

"You know, this really went from ugly to uglier, just when you thought it couldn't get more ridiculous in the House of Representatives," said anchor Kate Bolduan. "I mean, what — what do you think of this?"

"I would agree," said Reed, a former leader of the House Problem Solvers' Caucus who is retiring from Congress. "I mean, first, obviously, I disagree and condemn the kind of comments that were made by my colleague in Congress towards a fellow colleague on the other side of the aisle. But you're absolutely right. This is a pox on all our houses. And I would just tell you, this rhetoric, this type of commentary, has to stop. We need to focus on the American people and solving their problems. That's got to be the mission. But these — these types of rhetoric exchanges are very disappointing."

"I mean, Boebert's a flamethrower and clearly doesn't care," said Bolduan. "But this is — as you are getting at, this is bigger than her. It speaks to kind of a larger, more insidious problem of, if you allow this type of behavior to slide, if you try not to give it oxygen or attention, Congressman, hasn't the last Congress shown that it only gets worse?"

"I would agree, that you have to confront this but you have to look at the bigger picture here, too," said Reed. "Like — like you are articulating. This is the institution of Congress, this is the People's House and we have to respect each other. We can — we can disagree. I am a proud Republican. I know colleagues on the other side who are proud Democrats. But it doesn't mean we go into that chamber not united as Americans first. We are American citizens that should be working together, as opposed to engaging in what could be called antics of a high-school level nature at times."

[Rick Plant]

These radical right wingers only want to promote racism and hate. We have right wing anti American traitors like Lauren Boebert leading the way fueling this hate movement.

CNN releases shocking new video of Lauren Boebert: ‘We see her for who she is’



Controversial Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) has spent days receiving criticism for her bigoted remarks about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

In a video that went viral, Boebert told a story suggesting Omar, who is Muslim, should be considered a potential suicide-bombing terrorist. She said Omar belonged to the "Jihad Squad."

On Tuesday, CNN broadcast new video showing that Boebert told a similar story — with enough differences to draw the credibility of both of her accounts into question.

"More just-see-it-for-yourself evidence today of the hate and bigotry in the Republican ranks," CNN's John King reported. "This new video is from a September Republican fundraiser, Boebert not only tells her elevator story, she also calls Omar and another Muslim of Congress black-hearted and evil."

King described why he found the video to be so powerful, noting that, "our eyes and ears don't lie. We see her for what she is and what she believes."

Watch:

[Rick Plant]

Republicans love fascism and authoritarian dictators and they are hellbent on ending our democracy and turning our country into another 1940's Germany. They meet with and drool over dictators. White supremacist Tucker Carlson interviewed one this year.

Marco Rubio met with far-right candidate tied to Augusto Pinochet’s military dictatorship



Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) reportedly met with a far-right Chilean presidential candidate who defends military dictator Augusto Pinochet.

"José Antonio Kast is locked in a runoff election against a left-wing challenger and is often referred to as Chile’s Jair Bolsonaro, the would-be dictator in Brazil who regularly speaks warmly of his own nation’s time under a military dictatorship. Rubio, who is Cuban American and a member of the Republican Party, has long had links to the Latin American right," The Intercept reported Wednesday.

The Spanish news site Emol published a photo of the two.



"Kast’s family has deep ties to the dictatorship. His father, Michael Kast, was a lieutenant in the Nazi army before fleeing to Chile and raising sons who shared his far-right politics. One son, Miguel Kast, was appointed by Pinochet to be minister of labor and then president of the central bank," The Intercept reported. "He was one of the so-called Chicago Boys, a collection of young economists trained by Milton Friedman, set loose on Chile to launch a neoliberal experiment that saw social spending slashed and wealth funneled upward to the very rich. Christian Kast, according to journalist Javier Rebolledo’s book A La Sombra De Los Cuervos, was linked to peasant massacres under Pinochet, and José Antonio Kast campaigned against the the plebiscite that rewrote the Chilean Constitution and paved the way for Pinochet’s removal. 'I’m not a pinochetista, but I value everything he did,' Kast has said, adding that the dictatorship 'laid the foundations of modernity.'"

The runoff election is Dec. 19.

https://theintercept.com/2021/12/01/marco-rubio-chile-pinochet-jose-antonio-kast/

[Rick Plant]

GOP anti-Biden revolt officially thwarted as Senate passes bill to stop government shutdown
https://www.rawstory.com/government-shutdown/