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POSSIBLE TOPICS: VOTETEXAS.GOV—Voter Information; League City officials to vote on flag design at City Council meeting; Houston childcare facilities eligible to receive new property tax exemption; T-Squared: Associated Press, Texas Tribune to share select news content in new collaboration; Gov. Greg Abbott says Texas is two House votes away from passing school vouchers; Cities across the U.S. are abandoning bus stations. This East Texas town is embracing its bustling depot.; Ken Paxton agrees to community service, paying restitution to avoid trial in securities fraud case; Court challenge from Texas AG Ken Paxton could end Austin’s light-rail plans; Texas energy companies are betting hydrogen can become a cleaner fuel for transportation; Utah lawmaker blames DEI for Baltimore bridge collapse despite cargo ship collision; Takeaways from the Supreme Court arguments over the abortion drug mifepristone; Chinese property developer Evergrande faces a $120 billion fraud accusation and its chairman is barred for life. Here’s what we know so far; Cleanup of China Evergrande collapse calls for coordination and clarity; US says falling trade with China could be positive; New research finds that ancient carbon in rocks releases as much carbon dioxide as the world’s volcanoes; More.
Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. My co-host, assistant producer and show editor is Andrew Ferguson.
Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig (@ThinkwingRadio) is now on Wednesdays at 11AM (CT) or Thursdays at 6PM on KPFT 90.1 FM-HD2, Houston’s Community Media. You can also hear the show:
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- An educated electorate is a prerequisite for a democracy.
- You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not your own facts.
Except for timely election info, the extensive list of voting resources will now be at the end.
- Primary Election runoffs will be held on May 28th. So if you need to register to vote, or to update your voter information, now is a good time to take care of that. Consider it a form of Texas Two-Step. Links to county election sites for Harris and adjacent counties can be found at the bottom of this week’s blog post.
- League City officials to vote on flag design at City Council meeting; By James T. Norman | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:50 PM Mar 25, 2024 CDT / Updated 3:50 PM Mar 25, 2024 CDT
- League City officials could choose its new flag design, as well as approve a couple of master plans tied to water and wastewater, at its March 26 City Council meeting.
- What you need to know — League City officials could take action on approving the city’s new official flag March 26, according to agenda documents. There are three different styles, with each style having four options.
- When considering the design, officials followed basic principles from the North American Vexillological Association, which is an international organization dedicated to the study of flags, according to the organization’s website. …
- MIKE: I thought this was an interesting story because cities don’t choose new flags every day, but I found the story deficient in three ways.
- MIKE: First, the author says that the city council “could choose a flag”. The Proposed Resolution seems to say they will. Honestly, I’m unsure.
- MIKE: Second, the Exhibit file shows four designs, each in one of three color palettes. This doesn’t seem like it’s down to a final choice.
- MIKE: Third, the author provided no link for viewing the prospecting flags in question. I had to expend quite a bit of effort digging that up on my own. Given the subject of the story, I consider this a significant omission.
- MIKE: In a final observation, I wasn’t able to pose any of this to the author for clarification. Community Impact writers used to have email links. This seems to no longer be the case, and I’m unhappy about it.
- MIKE: The League City City Council will meet at 6 p.m. Wednesday, March 26 at the city’s Council Chambers, 200 W. Walker St., League City.
- MIKE: Finally, FYI: I think my preference of the choices available is flag number 3A.
- REFERENCE: Exhibit A – League City Flag Design Variations — LEGISTAR.COM
- REFERENCE: The Current League City Flag
- Houston childcare facilities eligible to receive new property tax exemption; By Cassandra Jenkins | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 3:05 PM Mar 22, 2024 CDT / Updated 3:05 PM Mar 22, 2024 CDT.
- Members of the Houston City Council passed an amendment March 20 to provide a tax exemption for childcare facilities as soon as the 2024-25 tax year.
- The gist — According to a March 20 news release, the new amendment made to Section 44-30 of the city’s code of ordinances will allow qualifying childcare facilities to claim a partial or complete exemption from their property taxes.
- To qualify for the exemption, childcare providers must meet certain requirements: Be a licensed childcare facility; Be a Texas Rising Star program participant; [and] At least 20% of a school’s enrolled children must be in the Texas Workforce Commission’s Child Care Services program.
- According to the Texas Workforce Commission, cities and counties can exempt anywhere from 50% to 100% of the appraised value of the property. Houston City Council approved a 100% exemption.
- Mayor John Whitmire said the new amendment will significantly impact childcare providers and the families they serve. …
- Applications for the tax exemption are being developed. According to the release, the county has advised qualifying childcare providers to stand by for the official release, expected sometime during the last week of March.
- MIKE: Before I say what I’m going to say, just know that I understand what a financial burden childcare is for working parents.
- MIKE: While I’m far from being an expert in this area, I think it’s really unusual for a profit-making business of any sort to get a 100% property tax exemption.
- MIKE: If there’s a catch, maybe it’s that, “At least 20% of a school’s enrolled children must be in the Texas Workforce Commission’s Child Care Services program.” I see this as a way to induce more childcare facilities to be “in-network”, as it were.
- MIKE: Why would I consider that a “catch”? Well, to the extent that this exemption makes sense to the public that will have to make up the tax shortfall created by the exemption, the public benefit might be that childcare costs should be reduced and made more affordable, at least to some who are most in need, as a result.
- MIKE: The city really has no way to mandate that, so my suspicion is that Texas Workforce Commission’s Child Care pays a below-market rate or gets some kind of standard discount.
- MIKE: The Texas Workforce Commission is funded by unemployment taxes, and those taxes are paid entirely by employers. For a pro-business place like Texas, this incentive could make sense, but with two caveats: First, the TWC Childcare discount should not be balanced by cost increases to parents not in the program; and second, this program should not be used to pad profit margins at the expense of all the other property tax payers in Houston.
- MIKE: So, we’ll see how this works out …
- T-Squared: Associated Press, Texas Tribune to share select news content in new collaboration; AP will distribute Tribune articles to its members. The Tribune will have access to AP’s immigration and Texas stories. by Sewell Chan | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | March 22, 2024 @ 2 PM Central
- The Associated Press and The Texas Tribune today announced a content sharing agreement, in which both organizations will benefit from each other’s journalism.
- The Texas Tribune will receive access to AP’s Texas news and its comprehensive immigration coverage from across the United States and beyond. The AP will now distribute the Tribune’s reporting on Texas to its members and customers, complementing the news organization’s existing coverage of the state.
- MIKE: There’s a little more to this article, but this is the crux of it. This is an unusual story for me to mention since it’s about news-gathering organizations gathering news, but I feel it matters for a couple of reasons.
- MIKE: First, neither the Texas Tribune nor the Associated Press have paywalls. In an era when lies are free but actual facts are often paywalled, this is a big deal.
- MIKE: Second, this alliance will expand the breadth and resources of both organizations, and anything that expands news-gathering potential in an era of contracting news outlets should be celebrated.
- Greg Abbott says Texas is two House votes away from passing school vouchers; Abbott called on supporters to push through the primary runoffs to deliver the final pro-voucher members needed to pass his legislation, plus some padding. by Renzo Downey | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | March 20, 2024 @ 3 PM Central. TAGS: Politics, Public education, State government, Greg Abbott,
- Greg Abbott on Wednesday urged school voucher supporters to make the final push in the May primary runoff elections to bring a pro-school voucher majority to the Texas House.
- Delivering the opening speech at an annual conservative policy conference in Austin, Abbott declared that the school voucher movement was “on the threshold of success” after the March 5 primary. The election saw several anti-voucher Republican incumbents lose to pro-voucher challengers, putting pro-voucher members on the verge of a majority in the Texas House, the last legislative roadblock to the policy.
- “We are now at 74 votes in favor of school choice in the state of Texas. Which is good, but 74 does not equal 76,” Abbott said, referring to the number of votes he needs to pass the bill into law. “We need two more votes.” …
- The May 28 Republican primary runoffs carry more opportunities for the [MIKE: What I call “self-styled”] “school choice” movement to pick up more voucher-supporting members, and Abbott said “we should be able to win that.” However, those votes aren’t guaranteed, and that tally assumes no surprises in the general election in November. …
- House leadership, including Speaker Dade Phelan and the Republican caucus campaign apparatus, are financially backing [state Rep. Justin Holland, R-Rockwall] and his fellow anti-voucher incumbents [in the runoffs]. However, not everyone in leadership is supporting the anti-voucher members.
- At a Texas Policy Summit panel that immediately followed Abbott’s speech, state Rep. Briscoe Cain, R-Deer Park, said he’s tired of “playing nice” on negotiating for anything other than “full universal” vouchers.
- “I hope every one of the people that win that runoff are pro-school choice, and if you’re supported by a teacher union, I don’t want you back,” Cain said. “It’s that easy.”
- MIKE: Every dollar given to vouchers is a dollar taken from public education. Public education needs more, not fewer, public dollars. In addition, those vouchers will often go to either elite private schools that children are already attending, or to religious schools that unavoidably include some religious indoctrination, thus violating the First Amendment separation of Religion and State.
- MIKE: Elections have consequences. Be sure to be registered to vote and vote. Consider it a form of Texas Two-Step.
- Cities across the U.S. are abandoning bus stations. This East Texas town is embracing its bustling depot.; Longview officials saw an opportunity to invest in mass transit after one of the nation’s largest busing companies pulled out. By Jess Huff | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | March 21, 2024 @ 11 AM Central. TAGS: Transportation,
- Michelle Smith never learned to drive.
- The 54-year-old East Texas woman has relied upon public transportation for most of her life. She fondly remembers long trips across the state with her grandmother on Greyhound buses. After she married, her husband drove her until he died six years ago. That’s when she returned to the bus station.
- Which is why, on a recent Wednesday afternoon, she was sitting in the Longview bus station, a trash bag of clothes in the seat beside her, a purse and a water bottle from the hospital in her lap.
- Smith, who was recovering from surgery, was debating whether to use the local bus system to take care of errands or jump on a Greyhound to Tyler. Either way, she could go anywhere she wanted from Longview’s renovated bus depot — a central hub for the town’s carless population and other travelers.
- Scenes like this are becoming rare in the U.S. Nationwide bus station are closing in cities like Richmond, Philadelphia, and Dallas. A major shakeup in the mass transit industry, coupled with a shift in ridership following the COVID-19 pandemic, is driving the closures, experts say.
- FlixBus, a Germany-based company, bought Greyhound’s massive fleet of buses in 2021. At the same time, Twenty Lake Holdings, a subsidiary of Alden Global Capital, bought Greyhound’s property and other assets. All the while, bus companies are shifting to pick up and drop off passengers at hotels, shopping centers and on roadsides
- Longview transportation officials were surprised to learn Greyhound planned to close its station in June 2022. Scott Lewis, the Longview Transit general manager, said he saw Greyhound as a piece of a much larger transit system.
- “To suddenly just lose that part of it, it just didn’t make sense,” he said.
- Longview went to work and reached a deal with Greyhound months later to reboot services. The deal included a small amount of new revenue for the city. The city also opted to renovate the bus station, which concluded with a ceremonial ribbon cutting in May 2023.
- Nearly a year into its investment, Longview officials are pleased with their decision. As is Flixbus, Courtney Castaneda, a spokesperson for the company, said this is an ideal solution for communities as Greyhound loses access to its bus stations.
- “Given that intercity bus travel frequently involves transfers to reach destinations, these connections, whether within a single carrier or between interlined carriers, underscore the necessity for robust public-private partnerships,” she said.
- Earlier this month, passengers reclined on benches just outside the terminal doors, enjoying the breeze even as clouds brought intermittent sprinkles of rain. The flow of people inside the terminal, a few blocks outside of downtown Longview, ebbed as buses pulled in and out.
- Among the mass transit companies that operate at the depot: Amtrak, Longview Transit, the local bus service, and Go Bus, a regional line. Greyhound also picks up and drops off passengers at this location as part of the deal the city struck with the company two years ago.
- Tequita Dudley, the Longview Transit director of operations, said the bus station is busy for a city of Longview’s size. In a community of 82,531 people, Longview’s transit system provided more than 135,000 trips in 2022, the latest agency profile shows.
- “Our depot is very well alive and used in the city,” she said. “We get hundreds of people every day. People come through and they see it’s empty and think nothing is happening here, but when the train comes in and the buses come in, this depot is busy.”
- As part of the deal the city struck with Greyhound, Longview transportation employees on Dudley’s team manage a ticket counter. This was important to city officials who saw mass confusion among bus riders after Greyhound closed its terminal at the bus depot.
- Longview also won a $96,000 grant from the Federal Transit Administration to expand the dispatch and customer service desk, install new lighting and flooring, and to paint the facility.
- Because the Federal Transit Authority requires matching grant funds, the Texas Department of Transportation stepped in for the initial grant. And as part of the contract with Greyhound, Longview receives a small commission for selling tickets which the city is using to bolster the grant funds account for future projects. …
- In Houston, Greyhound relocated its main terminal from downtown as it lost access to the land. Residents in Magnolia Park, where the new pick-up point is, told the Houston Landing they worried the crime in the city’s old Greyhound bus station would take root in the new station now located closer to their homes.
- Likewise, city leaders in Dallas are searching for solutions to the pending closure of the downtown Greyhound station. One of which is the establishment of a hub where a proposed high-speed rail line would stop in the city. This proposal was met with both celebration and criticism. Community developers worry about how it would impact real-estate development while city leaders see this as a way to support people who wouldn’t be mobile otherwise.
- Michael Walk, a research scientist at the Texas A&M Transportation Institute, said he saw value in cities taking over bus depots like Longview. Transportation, he said, is a fundamental need for every person, and it’s an economic engine for communities.
- “Even if I don’t use those services, they still have value,” he said. “Other people that I rely on, other people I know, need those services. They need those bus stations and need to be able to do inter regional trips. And it supports the local economy and the Texas economy. It supports the things that I rely on, day in and day out.”
- Travel within and between cities on buses dropped significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Both long bus rides between states and shorter stints between cities, such as Dallas to Houston, have regained popularity following the steep decline in 2020. Researchers at The Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University in Chicago found travel will return to pre-pandemic levels by 2026, according to the annual Intercity Bus Review. …
- [I]ntracity transit has been slow to return in cities like Houston or Austin. But it has returned in full force in smaller metropolitan areas, Walk said in a podcast interview for the transportation institute.
- This results from the type of riders who rely upon these services in smaller urban areas compared to their counterparts.
- In big cities, there is a mixture of riders who need the bus and those who take transit by choice; the working professionals who could drive if they wish or college students. In places like Longview, bus riders often have no other option. Having a station is a necessity, not a luxury, for those who use these services, Walk said. …
- MIKE: There’s more detail in the linked article.
- MIKE: On the one hand, I think that Longview deserves a lot of credit for seeing a problem that was addressing a need, and coming up with a solutions that represented a win for all the constituents involved.
- MIKE: In a sense though, this public-private transportation partnership isn’t an entirely new notion of a city involving itself in vital public transit when private enterprise fails at the task. In the latter half of the 19th century, New York City (which at the time constituted only Manhattan and the Bronx) experimented for decades with various privately-owned mass transit schemes, always falling short in one way or another, although there were some limited successes. By 1900, the City of Greater New York, incorporating the Five Boroughs as we know them today, had been created and mass transit was a problem that simply HAD to be solved.
- MIKE: The solution was to publicly fund a subway system that would be constructed by Cornelius Vanderbilt’s New York Central company and granted them a lease to run the system for a period of 35 years for a percentage of the fare revenue. After this lease term, full ownership would revert to the city.
- MIKE: To this day, the NY Metropolitan Transit Authority is a subsidized system, which basically pays for itself by saving the city from the costs of NOT having the system.
- MIKE: It’s a model that has persisted one way or another for over a century, though the details change based on the era and the community’s needs.
- MIKE: Kudos to Longview for finding some new wrinkles in the model that suit their particular needs. Maybe future transit models will learn from them for their own particular requirements.
- MIKE: And maybe states like Texas will help with these regional plans, or at least get out of the way.
- REFERENCE: The New York Rapid Transit Decision of 1900 (Katz) — NYCSUBWAY.ORG (A clear, well-written, but lengthy history of the NYC subway, it’s conception and eventual creation.)
- Ken Paxton agrees to community service, paying restitution to avoid trial in securities fraud case; Paxton, who will not have to enter a plea under the terms of the agreement, faced the prospect of decades in prison if he had been convicted of fraud. by Jasper Scherer | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | March 26, 2024 / Updated: 9 hours ago
- Prosecutors on Tuesday agreed to drop the securities fraud charges facing Attorney General Ken Paxton if he performs 100 hours of community service and fulfills other conditions of a pretrial agreement, bringing an abrupt end to the nearly nine-year-old felony case that has loomed over the embattled Republican since his early days in office.
- The deal, which landed three weeks before Paxton is set to face trial, also requires him to take 15 hours of legal ethics courses and pay restitution to those he is accused of defrauding more than a decade ago when he allegedly solicited investors in a McKinney technology company without disclosing that the firm was paying him to promote its stock. The amount of restitution totals about $271,000, prosecutor Brian Wice said.
- Paxton … will not have to enter a plea under the terms of the agreement …
- Wice said he is “not necessarily opposed” to dropping the charges before the 18 months are up if Paxton makes the payments sooner. He said Paxton cannot use campaign funds to pay restitution. …
- Wice said he had been “besieged by a torrent of phone calls” from people who have “expressed their monumental displeasure with the fact that these cases are being resolved with a pretrial intervention.” Touting the restitution Paxton now owes to his alleged victims, Wice said it was more important to secure justice for them than to pursue prison time for Paxton, which he said should only be a priority if the defendant poses a threat to public safety.
- “I appreciate your concern,” Wice said of those criticizing the outcome. “With all due respect, your truth is not the truth. You know one half of 1 percent of what [fellow prosecutor] Mr. [Jed] Silverman and I know about the facts of these cases. And the fact that all of these people have registered their monumental displeasure with what happened in these cases, I submit, probably should have been directed at the ballot box.” …
- Still, Paxton’s legal troubles aren’t over. His agency continues to face a lawsuit brought by four former top deputies who argue that Paxton improperly fired them in 2020 for reporting him to the FBI. Those whistleblowers told law enforcement they believed Paxton was using his office to benefit Austin real estate mogul Nate Paul — the charges that formed the basis for Paxton’s impeachment last year and that are the subject of an ongoing federal investigation. He has denied all wrongdoing. …
- MIKE: Maybe Prosecutor Wice should re-examine his snooty legal ideas. Political outrage at what appear to be unjust sentences or acquittals derive from perceptions of unfair justice. If he feels that the knows 99% more about this case than people protesting the plea deal, maybe he should make an effort to explain himself instead of being a snob about it.
- MIKE: To me this is just another case of justice delayed for rich and powerful people is justice avoided. In my lay opinion, Paxton should at least have been required to plead guilty to some misdemeanor. Just for the record.
- MIKE: But he’s also right about complainers going to the ballot box. Many do not. I constantly repeat myself, for which I apologize, but elections have consequences.
- Speaking of which — Court challenge from Texas AG Ken Paxton could end Austin’s light-rail plans; The attorney general took issue with the financial strategy Austin used to navigate the limits state lawmakers have placed on how Texas cities can raise money. by Nathan Bernier, KUT News | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | March 20, 2024 @ 5 AM Central
- Austin’s effort to build a high-frequency urban rail network is facing a challenge from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, whose legal arguments seek to dismantle the funding mechanism behind the voter-endorsed transit expansion.
- In a court filing, Paxton slammed the city’s payment plan for the 10-mile light-rail starter system. The financial strategy was designed to navigate the increasingly tight strictures the state Legislature has placed on how Texas cities raise money.
- If a court sides with Paxton, it could kill the light-rail expansion known as Project Connect.
- In November 2020, Austin voters approved a 21% increase in the maintenance and operations portion of their property tax rate to fund the project. The tax hike generates about $166 million a year and growing.
- The city transfers tax money to the Austin Transit Partnership, an entity authorized by voters to build and finance light rail. ATP needs big loans to cover the high upfront construction costs. The tax cash helps ATP secure loans and then pay them off.
- The estimated price tag of $4.7 billion in 2022 dollars could reach $7.1 billion by the time construction starts, according to a draft financial plan in ATP’s application for federal grants. The estimate doesn’t include interest payments on debt.
- Federal grants could cover up to half the costs of the light-rail system, ATP executives say. But the agency is planning to borrow some $1.75 billion in bonds to kickstart construction, which wouldn’t begin until 2027 at the earliest.
- The politically conservative Texas attorney general, who’s on track to be tried for felony fraud this spring, resurrected arguments he made in a legal opinion last year. Paxton said the maintenance and operations portion of a property tax bill can’t be used to pay down public debt. …
- Paxton’s filing comes as ATP is asking the state court to remove any doubt about the local government corporation’s ability to issue bonds. ATP and the city filed the so-called “bond-validation” lawsuit to preemptively stop the attorney general from blocking the sale of bond debt, a power he has over local government corporations like ATP.
- “It’s part of an effort to protect this voter-approved, generational light rail project for generations to come,” Mayor Kirk Watson said last month in his newsletter. “The statute includes an expedited timeline for the court to act so the litigation won’t drag on for years and years, imperiling the project.”
- In legal documents, ATP insists it is following state law. The city is allowed to collect revenue from the voter-approved tax increase and transfer the money to ATP. As a local government corporation, ATP has the authority to borrow money to carry out its purpose, the agency says in its filing.
- If a court agrees with Paxton and finds ATP cannot borrow money, it could kill the light-rail project. That’s exactly what a group of plaintiffs wants. …
- MIKE: There’s a bit more detail in the original story.
- MIKE: This is another example of a Republican Party that always touts local control unless they have the ability to dictate or thwart what local government wants. Then the heavy hand of The Republican State weighs in.
- MIKE: Personally, I’m not a huge fan of light rail. Light rail segregates rail lanes from traffic lanes and is permanently fixed in the roadbed. I feel like electric busses offer more flexibility over the long haul as the need for public commuting evolves over time, yet they too can be segregated from main traffic lanes and can override or coordinate with traffic signals for mass transit efficiency.
- MIKE: Nonetheless, if that’s what the citizens of Austin want, the State of Texas and the big nose of AG Ken Paxton should keep out of the local process.
- MIKE: This is just another example of the kind of Big Intrusive Government that self-described Small Government Republicans really want.
- Texas energy companies are betting hydrogen can become a cleaner fuel for transportation; Supporters say developing hydrogen as a fuel is critical to slowing climate change. Critics are concerned that producing it with fossil fuels will prop up the oil and gas industry. by Emily Foxhall | TEXASTRIBUNE.ORG | March 25, 2024, 12 hours ago. TAGS: Energy, Environment, Texas Public Utility Commission, Texas Railroad Commission,
- A concrete platform with fading blue paint marks the birthplace of the modern oil and gas industry in southeast Texas. Weather-beaten signs describe how drillers tapped the Spindletop oil well in 1901, a discovery that launched petroleum giants Texaco, Mobil and Gulf Oil.
- Nearby, a red pipeline traces a neat path above flat, gravel-covered earth. French company Air Liquide started building this unassuming facility, with a wellhead and other machinery, on the iconic site in 2014 to store what it believes will be key to an energy revolution: hydrogen.
- The ground that once released millions of barrels of oil now holds some 4.5 billion cubic feet of highly pressurized hydrogen. The gas is contained in a skyscraper-shaped cavern that reaches about a mile below ground within a subterranean salt dome.
- Hydrogen promoters see the gas as a crucial part of addressing climate change. If it’s produced in a way that creates few or no greenhouse gas emissions, it could provide an eco-friendly fuel for cars, planes, 18-wheelers and ships, and could power energy-intensive industries such as steel manufacturing. Hydrogen emits only water when used as fuel in fuel cells; burning it directly can create nitrogen oxides, which can create haze and acid rain.
- If companies can produce clean hydrogen at a price that’s competitive with gasoline or diesel, supporters say it would revolutionize the fuel industry.
- That’s a big if.
- Hydrogen is among the most common elements in the universe, but on Earth it’s typically found bonded with something else, such as carbon. Today, hydrogen is often obtained by isolating it from methane, a mix of carbon and hydrogen that is the main component of natural gas. This process leaves behind carbon dioxide, which worsens climate change if released into the air.
- Engineers say it’s possible to clean up that process by catching the extra carbon dioxide and reusing it — to get more oil out of a well, for example — or injecting it into the earth to store it. Another less polluting method is to split hydrogen from water, which is made up of hydrogen and oxygen, using electricity generated by wind, solar or nuclear power.
- Texas has emerged as a leader in producing hydrogen the cheaper way using abundant supplies of natural gas without capturing the carbon dioxide. [MIKE: Of course!] … More than 100 miles of pipelines move that hydrogen to companies that buy it for processes such as removing sulfur from crude oil. Little hydrogen is made from gas with carbon capture or from water in the state — or the rest of the country. …
- But producing enough hydrogen cheaply, building the pipelines to move it and the subterranean caverns to store it and finding the customers to buy it requires companies to take some financial risk.
- That effort is getting a boost from the federal government, which is offering billions of dollars’ worth of tax credits to kick-start production of hydrogen from gas with carbon capture or water. The government also plans to divide as much as $7 billion among seven regional clusters of projects to build hydrogen infrastructure, including up to $1.2 billion for projects in Texas and Louisiana that plan to make hydrogen largely from natural gas.
- Competing to break into the industry are traditional fossil fuel companies, including Chevron and ExxonMobil. Hydrogen advocates say interest by the oil giants is good because they have the money and expertise to tackle such an ambitious project.
- But environmental groups doubt that fossil fuel companies can make hydrogen from natural gas as cleanly as they say they can. They worry the federal funding will prop up oil and gas companies, when the emphasis should be on making hydrogen from water or creating clean power another way.
- [David Schlissel, the co-author of a report from the Institute for Energy, Economics and Financial Analysis, said in a webinar that,] “Producing hydrogen from natural gas is not clean, not low-carbon and cannot and should not be considered a solution in our efforts to solve the world’s worsening climate change crisis.” …
- [MIKE: Then there’s a chunk of the story which leans heavily on Texas as a potential producer of so-called “low-carbon hydrogen”. Continuing the story …]
- Hydrogen believers envision the fuel could decarbonize industries that are considered hard to electrify. Hydrogen would power planes and trucks that heavy electric batteries would slow down. It would supply the high heat needed to make cement that electricity could not provide.
- The new federal tax incentives get hydrogen close, if not all the way, to being able to compete with fossil fuels on price, said Fisher of RMI. The government plans to pay up to $3 per kilogram of what it defines as clean hydrogen, such as that made from water, or up to $85 per metric ton of stored carbon dioxide that’s captured after making hydrogen from natural gas.
- With the subsidies, producing hydrogen from water would cost generally from $4 to $6 per kilogram, and producing it from natural gas would cost generally from $2 to $4, Fisher said. He stressed that it would depend on the specifics of the project. The government’s goal is to get the cost to $1 per kilogram for both types.
- The hydrogen solution does not sound so promising to environmental groups, especially when it comes to making it from natural gas using carbon capture. …
- [Said Jane Patton, campaign manager for U.S. fossil economy at the Center for International Environmental Law,] “This is not a transfer off of fossil fuel dependency. This is a perpetuation of fossil fuel dependency.” …
- … Bob Bullard, founding director of the Bullard Center for Environmental and Climate Justice at Texas Southern University, known by many as the father of environmental justice [and now] a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, … said he’s seen no proof that a build-out of hydrogen and carbon storage will be any better for local communities than the expansion of the petrochemical industry was over the past century, bringing more pollution than benefits to surrounding communities. He continued to call for a federal study to find out whether hydrogen production with carbon capture is safe for the people who live around it. …
- One problem is that the [current low-carbon hydrogen] model inappropriately leaves out the fact that hydrogen pipelines could leak, Schlissel says. Hydrogen can react with the molecule that breaks down harmful methane in the atmosphere and make the methane last longer, contributing to climate change. …
- Speakers at the [environmentalists’] event also expressed little confidence in the Railroad Commission of Texas, which regulates the state’s oil and gas industry, to regulate hydrogen pipelines and underground storage. Commission Shift, a watchdog group that calls for reforming the Railroad Commission, says the agency has a poor track record when it comes to protecting Texans from explosions, leaks and other problems with wells and pipelines. …
- These advocates are up against wealthy, politically powerful companies that say making hydrogen from natural gas with carbon capture is a ready solution to start lowering how much carbon dioxide escapes into the atmosphere — even if it’s imperfect.
- [Chris Greig, a senior research scientist with the Andlinger Center for Energy and the Environment at Princeton University, said in an interview,] “I find this polarization of seeking perfect at the expense of very good is problematic. And, to be clear, the distrust (of oil and gas companies) is not unwarranted, right? There’s been some wrongs done,” Greig added. “But somehow we have to set that aside and find some sort of middle ground.”
- MIKE: I did the best I could editing this down from a roughly 7 page article.
- MIKE: There are other potential issues in addition to the legitimate environmental concerns about how hydrogen is liberated for fuel. In June of 2010 at another station, I did a show on hydrogen as a potential fuel, and I learned some things. Two of the most important things I learned are the challenges of holding hydrogen in a container, and the effect that hydrogen has on containers used to hold it.
- MIKE: Hydrogen, H2, is a really tiny molecule. It’s so light, that it only stays on Earth when combined with other elements. Free hydrogen always escapes into space, as does helium. That makes it very challenging to develop materials that can contain it. The result is that there will always be hydrogen leaks in pipelines, tanks, tankers, etc., and that must be accounted for environmentally and for safety purposes.
- MIKE: The second problem is called Hydrogen embrittlement. It is described in Wikipedia thusly: “Hydrogen embrittlement (HE), also known as hydrogen-assisted cracking or hydrogen-induced cracking (HIC), is a reduction in the ductility of a metal due to absorbed hydrogen. Hydrogen atoms are small and can permeate solid metals. Once absorbed, hydrogen lowers the stress required for cracks in the metal to initiate and propagate, resulting in embrittlement. Hydrogen embrittlement occurs most notably in steels, as well as in iron, nickel, titanium, cobalt, and their alloys. Copper, aluminium, and stainless steels are less susceptible to hydrogen embrittlement.” You can read more at the links I’ve provided.
- MIKE: There are materials and coatings that can protect against embrittlement, but as with most things, caveats apply.
- MIKE: None of this is to say that hydrogen shouldn’t have a future as a transportable fuel. But there’s still work to be done both in generating hydrogen and how best to use it as a fuel.
- Moving on to national news: Utah lawmaker blames DEI for Baltimore bridge collapse despite cargo ship collision; By Erin Alberty | AXIOS.COM | March 26, 2024
- Utah state Rep. Phil Lyman blamed diversity, equity and inclusion for the catastrophic collapse of the Francis Scott Key bridge in Baltimore.
- Officials say a cargo ship caused the collapse when it struck a bridge support in the Patapsco River.
- Driving the news: Lyman (R-Blanding) drew criticism Tuesday when he shared a post on X from the “Young Conservative Federation,” noting that Baltimore Port Commissioner Karenthia Barber has a background in “diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging.”
- “This is what happens when you have governors who prioritize diversity over the wellbeing and security of citizens,” wrote Lyman, who is running for Utah governor.
- The big picture: The bridge collapse is just the latest in a string of problems right wing activists have blamed on “DEI” programs.
- The other side: “Calling any and all failures of governments, institutions, engineering, or businesses the sole fault of ‘DEI initiatives’ … has become coded for ‘they put black people in charge instead of white people,'” posted Wall Street trader and podcaster Ben Cahn.
- MIKE: Baltimore Port Commissioner Karenthia Barber happens to be Black, so instead of just being an honest racist and saying, “This bridge collapsed because Commissioner Barber is Black,” Lyman is saying she has a “background” in DEI, which he uses to mean the same thing. I don’t have much else to say to this except that people who blame DEI for everything — or anything — are just racists. Period.
- Takeaways from the Supreme Court arguments over the abortion drug mifepristone; By Devan Cole, Jen Christensen, Tierney Sneed and Dan Berman | CNN.COM | Updated 4:37 PM EDT, Tue March 26, 2024
- MIKE: As a general rule, I avoid using this time to discuss widely covered news stories unless I feel I have something useful to add, but I think the story I cite makes some good points. From the article …
- A majority of Supreme Court justices appeared skeptical Tuesday of the idea of a nationwide ban or new limits on mifepristone, the primary drug used for medication abortions. …
- [T]he case may simply be determined on whether the doctors who brought the original lawsuit had the ability to bring the case in the first place. … A decision is expected by July. …
- [During the second hour of arguments, … Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Neil Gorsuch tore into the challengers’ attorney over the nationwide impact caused by the lawsuit.
- “Why can’t the court specify that this relief runs to precisely the parties before the court as opposed to looking to the agency in general and saying agency you can’t do this anywhere?” Roberts asked the [plaintiffs’] attorney, Erin Hawley.
- As she began to explain how such a remedy would be “impractical,” Gorsuch interjected to speak to the recent spike in universal injunctions. He said he went back “and looked and there are exactly zero universal injunctions that were issued during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s 12 years in office – pretty consequential ones. And over the last four years or so, the number is something like 60 and maybe more than that,” he continued. “And they’re a relatively new thing. And you’re asking us to extend and pursue this relatively new course, which this court has never adopted itself.”
- “This case seems like a prime example of turning what could be a small lawsuit into a nationwide, legislative assembly on an FDA rule or any other government action,” Gorsuch said.
- The Biden administration contends that even if some action in favor of the plaintiffs was warranted, it should not have affected the entire country as opposed to just the litigants in the case.
- [Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar said that,] “What the court did … is enter sweeping nationwide relief that restricts access to mifepristone for every single woman in this country. And that causes profound harm.”
- The discussion at one point turned to a key question – if the doctors challenging the nationwide approval of mifepristone can simply raise a “conscientious objection” that doesn’t require them to assist in an abortion rather than force a nationwide ban on the drug.
- Conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh asked whether federal law provides some protections for doctors who object to providing an abortion on moral and religious grounds – a sign that he may not be convinced that the plaintiff doctors had the legal right – known as standing – to bring their suit against the FDA since they could not demonstrate any injury to them stemming from the agency’s regulations.
- “Just to confirm on the standing issue: under federal law, no doctors can be forced against their consciences to perform or assist in an abortion, correct?” Kavanaugh, who is sometimes a swing vote on the high court, asked Prelogar.
- “Yes, we think that federal conscience protections provide broad coverage here,” she said. “We think that those amendments guard against the kind of injury that respondents are asserting.” …
- Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote the opinion reversing Roe v. Wade, and fellow ardent abortion opponent Justice Clarence Thomas, pushed the question of whether anyone can actually challenge the FDA on drug approvals.
- The FDA wants to be “infallible,” Alito said at one point.
- “Is there anybody who can sue and get a judicial ruling on whether what FDA did was lawful? And maybe what they did was perfectly lawful. But shouldn’t somebody be able to challenge that in court?” he asked.
- Prelogar stressed that challengers to FDA drug approvals need to show concrete harm to themselves, not simply a wider objection to policy. …
- That the challenge to mifepristone reached the Supreme Court in such a short amount of time was no accident – a result of the “judge-shopping” phenomenon seen most recently on major political issues including health care, firearms and abortion. …
- The US Judicial Conference this month instituted process changes that would limit the guaranteed impact of judge shopping, but that doesn’t mean social and political lawsuits won’t continue.
- MIKE: It’s always hazardous to guess what this court will do. The story makes it sound like a majority will vote against the plaintiffs in this case, maybe even by as much as 7-2. We’ll have to wait until July to find out.
- Now, leading us to world political-economic news — Chinese property developer Evergrande faces a $120 billion fraud accusation and its chairman is barred for life. Here’s what we know so far; By Brianna Morris-Grant and wires | ABC.NET.AU | Posted Mon 25 Mar 2024 at 1:49pm. TAGS: Business, Economics and Finance, China,
- The founder of embattled property developer Evergrande has been barred for life from China’s financial markets after the company allegedly falsified its revenue by almost $120 billion.
- The firm is one of the world’s most indebted property developers, defaulting on its debt in 2021 and applying for bankruptcy in the US in mid-2023. … Its chairman, Hui Ka Yan, was detained for suspected “illegal crimes” in September. …
- Evergrande said regulators found it had overstated its revenue in 2019 by 214 billion yuan ($45.3 billion), or about half.
- In 2020, its revenue was allegedly overstated by nearly 80 per cent, or 350 billion yuan ($74.1 billion).
- The China Securities Regulatory Commission (CSRC) also suspects problems with bonds Evergrande issued, it said. …
- Auditors will likely “be on the hook for some blame”, according to Reuters columnists.
- “PricewaterhouseCoopers’ China affiliate … quit last year as Evergrande’s accountant, and liquidators were already planning to sue the unit,” they said.
- “Enron’s collapse famously precipitated, along with the scandal at telecom company WorldCom, the demise of then-Big Five accounting firm Arthur Andersen.
- “The Evergrande fiasco could accelerate the retreat of the Big Four in China. PwC’s mainland, Hong Kong and Macau operations boast over 800 partners.”
- The Chinese government has increased support for the real estate industry, listing thousands of projects eligible for loans from state banks that are stepping up to help contain the damage.
- Party leaders have emphasised that they want to ensure that families are able to obtain housing they have paid for.
- But developers borrowed heavily as they turned cities into forests of apartment and office towers, pushing total corporate, government and household debt to more than 300 per cent of the country’s annual economic output, unusually high for a middle-income country.
- Fidelity International’s investment director Catherine Yeung told the ABC in January other private property developers could still “go down the same track”. …
- “Evergrande’s liquidation is a sign that China is willing to go to extreme ends to quell the property bubble,” said Andrew Collier, managing director of Orient Capital Research in Hong Kong, when the judgement came down. …
- The Reserve Bank of Australia has warned problems caused by the deterioration of China’s property sector could spark a global slowdown, weaker commodity prices and “reduced Chinese imports of Australian goods and services”.
- “Widespread financial stress in China would … affect advanced economy financial systems mostly via its impact on Chinese trade and a general increase in risk aversion in global financial markets,” the RBA wrote in a recent financial stability review. …
- MIKE: In case you missed it, the preceding story is from Australia Broadcasting Company. I’ve been following this story for months. We’ve discussed it on the show before, and there were times I wanted to do updates but we just ran out of time.
- MIKE: It seems to me that there are parallels here to the financial crisis that hit the US and other countries in 2008. Being “Too big to fail” was a concern then and continues to be an ongoing concern among many political and economic theorists to this day. It’s a big reason why the Biden administration is beginning to reapply anti-trust laws that had lain dormant for decades under both Democratic and Republican governance. “Economies of scale” in megamergers have given rise to fears of market segment control and price fixing.
- MIKE: The dilemma facing China is now an equivalent to the 2008 financial crisis, even to the parts that concerns of “too big to fail” and real estate speculation is playing in it.
- MIKE: The Chinese government is having to decide what companies should fail, what parts of these companies may need to be preserved in the national interest, and how to let failing companies die as an object lesson to other businesses in how they conduct themselves in the future.
- MIKE: They also have to consider how to limit the damage to consumers who thought they were buying homes in good faith, how to keep consumer confidence in the economy and the Chinese Communist Party from unraveling, and how to prevent major damage to the Chinese economy as a whole.
- MIKE: Positive outcomes are not guaranteed.
- REFERENCE: Cleanup of China Evergrande collapse calls for coordination and clarity; HNA and GITIC bankruptcies underscore value of transparent resolution process. By Shitong Qiao | NIKKEI.COM | March 6, 2024 17:00 JST. Shitong Qiao is a professor of law at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina and author of the forthcoming “The Authoritarian Commons: Neighborhood Democratization in Urban China” (Cambridge University Press).TAGS: Evergrande, Urban China, Real Estate Bubble,
- REFERENCE: China’s economy is unravelling at a pace previously thought unimaginable. Where does that leave Australia? —By business editor Ian Verrender | ABC.NET.AU | Posted Mon 26 Feb 2024 at 1:40pm
- REFERENCE: It’s official: The era of China’s global dominance is over — Linette Lopez | BUSINESSINSIDER.COM | Oct 15, 2023, 5:22 AM CDT
- US says falling trade with China could be positive; By Jonathan Josephs & Sameer Hashmi | BBC News | Feb. 29, 2024. TAGS: US Economy, Xi Jinping, Economy, Trump Tariffs, China, Global Trade, World Trade Organization, United States, China-US Relations, China Economy, Trade
- The steep drop in trade with China could be a positive development, the United States’ top trade official has told the BBC.
- Katherine Tai said it “isn’t necessarily negative. It could be a positive indication of diversification on both sides.”
- The amount of goods the world’s two biggest economies sold to each other fell 17% last year.
- It comes amid deepening divisions in the global economy.
- Those differences were exposed again with the US announcing an investigation into what it said was a potential national security risk from cars made in China, citing fears that tech-connected cars could collect personal data or be controlled remotely.
- Chinese car companies have been expanding their presence in other parts of the world but have virtually no presence in the US, where they already face import duties of 25%.
- The White House described its action as “unprecedented” and a fair response to Chinese policies which impose restrictions on foreign car companies.
- Last year the amount of goods the US bought from China fell just over 20% to $427bn, with a 4% fall the other way to just under $148bn (£117bn). …
- Trade between the two hit a record high in 2022 but has fallen as many big US companies move production outside of China.
- Amid growing tensions between the two countries, trade expert William Reinsch of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies says: “Last year’s decline in U.S.-China trade does appear to be a sign that both economies are moving away from each other”
- “But if you look at the increased imports from Southeast Asia into the United States, it appears that a good part of that increase is coming from Chinese companies that have either moved production or are simply moving their products through third countries in order to circumvent tariffs or other restrictions.” …
- President Biden and President Xi struggled to make progress on trade when they met in California in November
- The US has been leading … calls for [reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO)] in recent years.
- Under Donald Trump’s presidency it disabled the dispute resolution body by blocking the appointment of new judges, arguing that the system and its rulings favoured China at the expense of the US.
- That blockade and call for reform have continued under Joe Biden’s presidency despite his team revealing very little of the changes they want publicly.
- Ambassador Tai said that “the WTO is here to serve the interests of all of its members, large and small.”
- Trade relations between the world’s two biggest economies have worsened under the Biden administration with both the US and China imposing new barriers on trade, including restrictions on computer chip exports which have recently suffered shortages.
- Liu Pengyu, a spokesperson for the Chinese Embassy in Washington, told the BBC: “Upholding sound and steady growth of China-US economic and trade ties serves the fundamental interests of both countries and our peoples and is conducive to global economic growth.”
- Mr Liu added that the two sides should work together on global challenges and hoped the US would move “in the same direction”. …
- Both countries are trying to grow their economic influence in parts of Africa and Asia as they try to secure access to natural resources and build resilience into supply chains.
- It has led to growing concerns that the world is splitting into two trading blocs …
- A WTO study found such a division could cost the world economy 5% of its GDP. …
- MIKE: Believe it or not, this story can be traced all the way back to Richard Nixon’s visit to China in 1972. The reasons for this opening to what was then commonly referred to as “Red China” were strictly geopolitical. Cracks had been appearing in the ‘Big Brother” relationship that China had had with the Soviet Union since 1949, with China as the junior partner and the USSR as the Big Brother.
- MIKE: Over time, this relationship began to chafe China. There had even been some border conflict between China and the USSR in 1969.
- MIKE: This is the result of a long history between these two nations, and I have linked to the longer story in references below in this blog post.
- MIKE: Thus, both China and the United States began to see this as a useful time to expand their relations with each other to counterbalance Soviet power and influence.
- MIKE: This new multi-polar geopolitical dynamic served the interests of both parties at the time.
- MIKE: This new dynamic led corporations in the US and Europe to see China as a vast potential new market for selling their products, and eventually as a cheap place to move their production to. Thus began the offshoring and deindustrialization of the US Midwest and elsewhere, versus the now increasing economic and industrial might and influence of China.
- MIKE: From a geopolitical perspective, Western governments also hoped that this new interconnectedness with the West might lead to some political liberalization in China. At least, this is what they told themselves. And us.
- MIKE: This more or less brings us to the current story.
- MIKE: The pendulum is now swinging back in the other direction. “On-shoring” and reindustrializing America is now seen as a National Security necessity. There will still be offshored production for US companies, but they will be increasingly less concentrated and more diverse, among countries in South and Southeast Asia, Africa, and Latin America.
- REFERENCE: 1972 visit by Richard Nixon to China — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- REFERENCE: Sino-Soviet border conflict — From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- And in global warming news — scientific research is showing us that humans aren’t the only cause of global warming, but at least humans are a cause we can control. From October, byORG: New research finds that ancient carbon in rocks releases as much carbon dioxide as the world’s volcanoes; by University of Oxford | PHYS.ORG | Oct. 4, 2023
- A new study led by the University of Oxford has overturned the view that natural rock weathering acts as a CO2 sink, indicating instead that this can also act as a large CO2 source, rivaling that of volcanoes. The results, published … in the journal Nature, have important implications for modeling climate change scenarios.
- Rocks contain an enormous store of carbon in the ancient remains of plants and animals that lived millions of years ago. This means that the “geological carbon cycle” acts as a thermostat that helps to regulate the Earth’s temperature.
- For instance, during chemical weathering rocks can suck up CO2 when certain minerals are attacked by the weak acid found in rainwater. This process helps to counteract the continuous CO2 released by volcanoes around the world, and forms part of Earth’s natural carbon cycle that has helped keep the surface habitable to life for a billion years or more.
- However, for the first time this new study measured an additional natural process of CO2 release from rocks to the atmosphere, finding that it is as significant as the CO2 released from volcanoes around the world. Currently, this process is not included in most models of the natural carbon cycle. …
- Up to now, measuring the release of this CO2 from weathering organic carbon in rocks has proved difficult. In the new study, the researchers used a tracer element (rhenium) which is released into water when rock organic carbon reacts with oxygen. Sampling river water to measure rhenium levels makes it possible to quantify CO2 However, sampling all river water in the world to get a global estimate would be a significant challenge.
- To upscale over Earth’s surface, the researchers did two things. First, they worked out how much organic carbon is present in rocks near the surface. Second, they worked out where these were being exposed most rapidly, by erosion in steep, mountain locations. …
- This could then be compared to how much CO2 could be drawn down by natural rock weathering of silicate minerals. The results identified many large areas where weathering was a CO2 source, challenging the current view about how weathering impacts the carbon cycle. …
- Ongoing and future work is looking into how changes in erosion due to human activities, alongside the increased warming of rocks due to anthropogenic climate changes, could increase this natural carbon leak. A question the team are now asking is if this natural CO2 release will increase over the coming century. “Currently we don’t know—our methods allow us to provide a robust global estimate, but not yet assess how it could change,” says [Professor Robert Hilton of the Department of Earth Sciences, at University of Oxford),.
- [Dr. Jesse Zondervan, the researcher who led the study at the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, concluded that,] “While the carbon dioxide release from rock weathering is small compared to present-day human emissions, the improved understanding of these natural fluxes will help us better predict our carbon“
- MIKE: As the saying goes, “The more you know …”
- MIKE: I think that what we’re seeing here is an example of Chaos Theory in action. In order to predict how a chaotic situation will turn out, you need to know all the possible variables that affect the chaotic event being studied. But even then, chaos has micro-variables that cannot be adequately predicted because there are too many solutions, even with perfect knowledge of the environment being studied.
- MIKE: Some things will never be better than a “best guess”. Even if it’s a really, really good guess.
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