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TOPICS: ELECTION INFO; H-GAC announces ‘Free Fare Fridays’ for transit in the Greater Houston area; Should unpaid traffic tickets lead to jail time? This justice of the peace doesn’t think so.; Trump threatens to cut off California wildfire aid if Newsom doesn’t change water policy; The potential merger of two steel industry titans has environmentalists worried;

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig where we discuss local, state, national, and international stories. 

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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Except for timely election info, the extensive list of voting resources will now be at the end.

Welcome to Thinkwing Radio with Mike Honig on KPFT Houston at 90.1-HD2, Galveston 89.5-HD2 and our new improved Huntsville repeater at 91.9-HD2. KPFT is Houston’s Community Media. On this show, we discuss local, state, national, and international stories that may have slipped under your radar.

1. ELECTION INFO: Be correctly registered for the fall General elections, and double check at the link I’m providing to Texas Secretary of State to make sure you remain
   5. The general election is Nov. 5.
   6. In just 3 weeks, The deadline for voter registration or correction of your voter registration is Oct. 7.
   7. In just about 5 weeks, The deadline to apply for a mail ballot is October 25. Click on the link I’m providing to HarrisVotes (com) for the application. Please fill it out, print it, and mail it (NOT email or fax) before the deadline.
   8. If you are a new Texas resident, OR if you have changed your address since you last voted, OR if you have had any kind of name change for reasons such as marriage or divorce, then you MUST verify that you are still registered to vote AND you must update your voter information.
   9. The criteria required are your Voter ID number plus your date of birth, OR your Texas driver’s license number or Texas photo ID number plus date of birth, OR your name/county/date of birth.
   10. If you need to update any information, click on the voter registration link at VoteTexas(dot)gov. That will take you to an application page where you are given the option to register for the first time, OR to change your voter information, OR to replace your voter registration.
   11. Once you complete this form, you are NOT automatically registered. Instead, you MUST print it, sign it, and mail it to the address that is provided.
   12. Early Vote Centers will be open from Monday, October 21– Friday, November 1 (Mon-Sat: 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. Sun:12 p.m. – 7 p.m. )
   13. Vote Centers will accept voters from 7 a.m. – 7 p.m. on Election Day, Tuesday, November 5.
   14. Visit our “What’s on my Ballot?” page and enter your name or address to see all the contests and candidates you are eligible to vote on! (You can bring handwritten notes or printed sample ballots to the voting booth; just be sure to take it with you when you leave.)
   15. REFERENCE: Verify: Yes, Texas will purge ‘suspense list’ voters from roll after 2024 presidential election — Author: Amanda Stevenson | KHOU.COM | Published: 10:26 PM CDT August 29, 2024/Updated: 10:28 AM CDT August 30, 2024
2. From August 30^th, a story from KHOU.COM relating to making sure your voting registration is up-to-date and still valid. — KHOU Verify: Yes, Texas will purge ‘suspense list’ voters from roll after 2024 presidential election; Author: Amanda Stevenson | KHOU.COM | Published: 10:26 PM CDT August 29, 2024/Updated: 10:28 AM CDT August 30, 2024. TAGS: Voting, Texas Secretary of State, 2024 Presidential election, National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (NVRA), Voter Suspense List,
   1. MIKE: The KHOU story offers a couple of pages of information in the form of what amounts to an FAQ.
   2. MIKE: If you have any general questions about suspense lists or voter roll purges, I recommend going to this article as a starting point. The story also links to its sources.
   3. REFERENCE: Texas Election Code
   4. REFERENCE: Texas Secretary of State, Alicia Pierce, Assistant Secretary of State for Communications,
   5. REFERENCE: Brennan Center for Justice, Sean Morales-Doyle,  Director, Voting Rights Program
   6. REFERENCE: Harris County Tax Assessor-Collector & Voter Registrar
   7. REFERENCE: Fort Bend County Election Administrator, John Oldham
   8. REFERENCE: League of Women Voters, Texas
   9. REFERENCE: S. Election Assistance Commission
   10. REFERENCE: 1993 National Voter Registration Act
3. Relevant to the topic of voting, voter suppression, and making sure you are still registered — Paxton sued over voter registration purge activities; By Charles Kuffner | Posted on September 15, 2024. TAGS: Texas AG Ken Paxton, Latino Voting, Cristina Tzintzún Ramirez, Election 2024, Immigration, Jolt Initiative, Lawsuit, Parker County, Texas, Voter Registration, Voter Suppression.
   1. Kuffner titled this piece, “Counterpunch time” — [Kuffner excerpted this from Texas civic group wants judge to block Ken Paxton’s investigation into voter registration efforts; Jolt, which advocates for more Latino voting participation, says the attorney general’s probe has spurred threatening comments online. By James Barragán | ORG | Sept. 13, 2024@7 PM Central]
   2. A nonprofit focused on increasing Latinos’ civic participation sued Attorney General Ken Paxton in federal court Friday so it could continue its voter registration efforts after the Republican official targeted them in an investigation last month.
   3. The organization Jolt said in its request for a temporary restraining order that Paxton’s investigation would irreparably harm the organization and its associates by disclosing personal information and potentially placing its workers, volunteers and associates in harm’s way.
   4. “If Jolt were forced to disclose confidential information to the Attorney General, it would be considered a betrayal of the trust that Jolt has earned from the Texas Latino community,” the organization’s lawyer, Mimi Marziani, wrote in the lawsuit. “It would make it more difficult for Jolt to associate with others and carry out its mission effectively, and it would likely put Jolt employees and others associated with the organization in danger.”
   5. The background: Jolt’s lawsuit comes as Paxton, a Republican, has tried to bolster unfounded claims that Democrats are allowing noncitizens into the country so they can vote in large numbers. It also follows unprecedented attempts to investigate or shut down nonprofit social aid organizations that assist migrants and Latinos.
   6. Last month, Paxton announced that his office was investigating whether organizations in Texas were “unlawfully registering noncitizens to vote” after FOX News host Maria Bartiromo had posted on social media that someone had seen organizations in Parker County and Fort Worth registering “immigrants” to vote.
   7. The elections administrator and Republican County Chair in Parker County had told news outlets there was no evidence to support the charge. Experts say there is no evidence that people who aren’t U.S. citizens vote in elections in mass numbers. And before someone is allowed to vote, local and Texas officials verify their eligibility.
   8. But on Aug. 31, Jolt, which had been registering people to vote outside Department of Public Safety offices in Fort Worth, received a “Request to Examine” from Paxton’s office asking the organization to turn over several documents, including information it provides about the voter registration process and all of the voter registration receipts it had completed.
   9. In its lawsuit, Jolt said Paxton did not identify a reason why the nonprofit needed to provide the information and did not accuse the organization of any wrongdoing. The group also said Paxton did not obtain the permission or authority from a court to obtain the documents, instead asking for a “Request to Examine” under state law regulating the organization of businesses.
   10. If Jolt did not comply with the request, the nonprofit could forfeit the ability to do business in the state. The nonprofit said in its lawsuit that it is also a Class B misdemeanor to fail to comply with the request from the attorney general’s office.
   11. KUFFNER COMMENTS: That Bartiromo story was noted in passing here. I don’t recall Jolt being mentioned before, but I’m sure Paxton’s been out casting a wide net. … As for the legal action here, well, everything Paxton has done so far has been based on fiction and lies, and so far at least his bullying efforts against immigrant-focused nonprofits have been stopped. As always, it’s not over until the appeals run out, so don’t get complacent. The short-term goal is to stop or at least slow down the [BS] until after the election. From there, we have to get back to the more long-term efforts. You know what I’m talking about.
   12. MIKE: I did a little further research on this story because it omitted which court this suit was filed in. It was filed in THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS. It’s a 25 page document which I found and linked to here.
   13. MIKE: I don’t think a judge has been assigned this case yet.
4. H-GAC announces ‘Free Fare Fridays’ for transit in the Greater Houston area; By Jessica Shorten | COMMUNITYIMPACT.COM | 2:26 PM Sep 4, 2024 CDT / Updated 2:27 PM Sep 4, 2024 CDT. TAGS: Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC), Metro,
   1. The Houston-Galveston Area Council announced in a Sept. 3 news release a new campaign focusing on reducing air pollution levels in September will provide free use of certain mass transit routes on Fridays in September.
   2. What you need to know — As part of the partnership with H-GAC, multiple transit agencies across the Houston region will allow riders to use mass transit routes free of charge on Fridays in September. According to the release, the initiative aims to reduce the amount of air pollution generated from vehicles on Houston area roadways. The participating agencies include:
   3. Harris County Transit: All routes [The goal of Harris County Transit Services is to provide residents outside of the Metro service area with transportation]
   4. Fort Bend Transit: All routes [Fort Bend Transit’s mission is to provide safe and efficient public transportation services while maintaining service quality and customer satisfaction.]
   5. City of Conroe: Fixed and paratransit routes [The public transportation agency for the City, Conroe Connection Transit (CCT), provides a low-cost mobility option for residents traveling to and from housing, jobs, services and shopping. …]
   6. The Woodlands Township: all routes [The Woodlands Express Park and Ride ]
   7. MIKE: I’ve added some information that was not in the original article. I’ve embedded direct links to Harris County Transit, Fort Bend Transit, and City of Conroe Connection Transit (CCT).
   8. MIKE: I think it must be made clear that, as I understand this story, METRO is not included in this offer. I wish the story clarified whether this is the case, but I infer that if METRO was also offering free rides on Fridays, they would have been specifically included in the list at the end of the article.
   9. MIKE: I hope that this benefits some of you that were not already aware of this offer or were confused by what the offer actually included..
5. Should unpaid traffic tickets lead to jail time? This justice of the peace doesn’t think so.; By Clare Amari | HOUSTONLANDING.ORG | September 16, 2024 / 4:28 pm. TAGS: Justice Of The Peace Steve Duble, Harris County, Class C Misdemeanors, Traffic Violations,
   1. A Harris County justice of the peace has made the unusual move to formally recall, or withdraw, all 12,500 outstanding arrest warrants issued by his court — a decision condemned by critics as “inexplicable” but celebrated by advocates for reform as a step toward addressing a profound injustice. 
   2. The recall, issued by Steve Duble, justice of the peace for Harris County Precinct 1, Place 2, exclusively impacts those charged with Class C misdemeanors — the lowest-level criminal offenses in Texas. Mostly traffic violations, these offenses are punishable only by fine, not jail time, and are deemed so minor that defendants are not entitled to a public defender. The recall cancels only the arrest warrants, not the cases themselves, which remain active. 
   3. In an interview with the Landing, Duble said “big constitutional concerns” drove his decision to recall the arrest warrants, all issued by his predecessor, David Patronella, before Duble took office in 2023. 
   4. [Duble said,] “My decision to do this was controlled by my review of the law and my concerns about constitutional issues. Due process and right to counsel are the concerning ones. Plus, we’ve got the statute and the criminal code that say anything involving jail time isn’t supposed to involve” justice courts.”
   5. … Duble says he did not decide to issue a recall lightly — nor quickly. 
   6. He first took it under consideration, he said, in spring 2023, when he read an advisory from the Justice Department on the use of fines and fees as punishment. The document cited numerous constitutional pitfalls in administering fines and fees for low-level criminal offenses, a nationwide practice. 
   7. Equally concerning, Duble said, was an alarmingly high statistic he discovered earlier this summer. In a report generated by the Texas Office of Court Administration for the month of June, he found that 106 people who owed money in his court for Class C misdemeanors had seen their fines satisfied by serving jail time. 
   8. While some of the people affected might have been jailed for reasons unrelated to the Class C misdemeanor charges, Duble discovered that wasn’t always the case.
   9. “I found one (case) where the person was brought into jail on nothing but an arrest warrant out of this court, and it was all parking tickets,” he said. He worried there could be more such cases. “Once I looked at things like that and reviewed all these constitutional issues in the DOJ letter, that just put red flags up for me. That really concerns me.” 
   10. He recalled the 12,500 warrants shortly thereafter, on Aug. 22. 
   11. The move received a mixed reaction from legal experts and criminal justice stakeholders but was greeted with enthusiasm by criminal justice reformers, who echoed Duble’s reasoning. 
   12. “We applaud Judge Duble,” said Jennifer Carreon, director of the Criminal Justice Project at the nonprofit Texas Appleseed. “If you don’t have the right to counsel, then you shouldn’t be subject to arrest. You shouldn’t be subject to incarceration. It is a due process issue.” 
   13. However, Duble has faced scathing pushback on the recall from the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, which accused him of undermining accountability and jeopardizing public safety. 
   14. [The office said in a statement,] “We only recently were made aware of Judge Duble’s inexplicable decision to grant fugitives a free pass in his courtroom. This decision can endanger the lives of the public and of our law enforcement officers. Accountability is fundamental to justice, and without it, the public loses faith in our entire judicial system.”
   15. [MIKE: I’ll note as an aside that the Harris County DA is Kim Ogg, who recently switched to the Republican Party and will leave office on December 31. Continuing …]
   16. Paul Bettencourt, a Republican Texas state senator whose district includes parts of Houston, echoed the district attorney’s office in an interview with Fox 26 Houston last week, describing the recall as “crazy.”
   17. “This is nuts,” he said. “It’s exactly what shouldn’t happen by a judge in the 21st century.” 
   18. [MIKE: Or should it? Aren’t debtors’ prisons supposed to have gone out of style by the end of the 19^th century? Going on with the story …]
   19. Bettencourt’s district does not overlap with Duble’s precinct. 
   20. “Most of (the warrants) are for traffic tickets,” said Chris Gore, a criminal defense lawyer and associate judge in a Harris County municipal court, where he handles cases similar to Duble’s. “If (low level traffic offenses) were truly a public safety issue, then the county and every municipality would be taking the issue seriously and committing more resources to the problem and not punting it onto the court.” 
   21. Duble said he couldn’t be sure whether the defendants named in the warrants had been assessed for their ability to pay their fines. He viewed that as a violation of due process, the right to procedural protections as guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. 
   22. [Said Duble,] “I’m certainly not going to issue an arrest warrant until I know that all those things have been exhausted — that we’ve done our ability-to-pay analysis.”
   23. However, Duble also emphasized that recalling the warrants was not the same as dismissing the cases, and said his court would continue to pursue collection of any fines owed through different methods. 
   24. “I haven’t excused anything,” [Duble] said. “The tickets are still there. They need to be dealt with, and we’re pursuing our collection efforts.” 
   25. Duble framed the recall as a matter of simple fairness. 
   26. [He said,] “I’m just trying to do something that I think is smarter and makes more sense, and balances the need to protect public safety with the law. Everything I’ve tried to do since I came into office has really been focusing on access to justice, and I think (the recall) falls under that pillar.” 
   27. Other courts have expressed similar concerns about incarcerating defendants for failing to pay their fines. 
   28. Nathan Hecht, chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, [MIKE: Whom I will note here was originally appointed to the Texas Supreme Court by Republican Texas Governor Bill Clements in 1989, and made Chief Justice by Republican Governor Rick Perry in 2013,] called the practice “unconstitutional” in a 2017 address. And in 2019, a federal district court ruled that Santa Fe, a city in Galveston County, had violated a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to counsel by jailing him for unpaid fines, even though he was not represented by a lawyer at trial. 
   29. Then, in 2021, the Idaho Supreme Court ruled that the practice of issuing arrest warrants for failure to pay fines and fees violates the Fourteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution if the court has not first analyzed a defendant’s ability to pay.
   30. The Idaho court did not recall the warrants but found that they were unconstitutional — and unenforceable. 
   31. “The reason is pretty straightforward,” said Lisa Foster, co-executive director of the Fines and Fees Justice Center, which advocates for the elimination of discriminatory debt-based punishment. “The U.S. Supreme Court has said unequivocally (that) you cannot jail someone for non-payment of a fine unless you first determine that they have the ability to pay that fine. If the person isn’t able to afford the fine, you can’t put them in jail for that, because that’s incarcerating someone just because they’re poor.” 
   32. Foster also emphasized that Class C misdemeanors, the only type of criminal offense handled in justice courts like Duble’s, aren’t eligible for jail time. These include charges for traffic violations, such as speeding, running a red light and failure to yield. 
   33. “We’re not talking about things most people think of as a crime,” Foster said, citing traffic violations in particular. “These are not even classified as crimes in most states.” 
   34. Duble, Foster, and other legal experts also emphasized that warrants are an ineffective means of collecting the fines imposed for such violations.
   35. “It’s not effective,” Duble said. “As a practical matter, all that happens if somebody gets arrested on one of these is (that) they get cleared for jail credit” without paying anything — even as the county spends money to execute the warrant.
   36. “This is a matter of fiscal prudence,” Foster said. “Any time you use jail as a collection mechanism for fines and fees, you are costing the taxpayers money… Jail’s expensive. It’s a lose/lose proposition.” 
   37. Duble said he would defer to the authority of a higher court if it disagreed with the recall, and added that he would likely not issue any arrest warrants in the future except on a case-by-case basis. 
   38. That could make a big difference in the lives of defendants who live in his jurisdiction, said [Jennifer] Carreon, of Texas Appleseed, who often hears from people unable to pay the fines assessed for their traffic tickets and frightened of the warrants issued for non-payment.
   39. “What we have found is that the warrants do disproportionately impact people of color, Black Texans in particular, and they disproportionately impact lower-income communities,” she said, lauding Duble for the recall. “We hope that more (justices of the peace) will follow suit.”
   40. MIKE: “Jailed while poor” is unfair, unjust, and inequitable. Debtors’ prison in lieu of fines is what it amounts to.
   41. MIKE: As the story points out, it’s not only probably unconstitutional. It also costs taxpayers money in a pointless effort as some sort of attempted justice.
   42. MIKE: Obviously, infractions of the law have to be paid for in some way. I’m not a lawyer, but maybe if there is no ability to pay, some hours of community service might be appropriate.
   43. MIKE: I certainly applaud Judge Duble for taking a bold step to enforce law as the US Constitution and even the Texas state legislature intended. I also deeply appreciate Republican Texas Supreme Justice Hecht taking a law-based position on this topic that probably makes him unpopular among many of his judicial and party peers.
   44. REFERENCE: Toolkit: Ticket Help Texas (I Want Jail Credit Towards My Fines) — TICKETHELPTEXAS.ORG
   45. REFERENCE: Texas Appleseed — TEXASAPPLESEED.ORG
6. Trump threatens to cut off California wildfire aid if Newsom doesn’t change water policy; by Jared Gans | THEHILL.COM | 09/13/24 3:34 PM ET. Tags California wildfires, Donald Trump, Gavin Newsom, Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, Smelt,
   1. Former President Trump threatened to withhold federal aid to battle California wildfires, should he be reelected, if Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) does not change a policy that protects an endangered species of fish.
   2. Trump said during a roughly hourlong press conference Friday at his Los Angeles area golf club that if elected, he would give California “more water than almost anybody has,” allowing farmers to have full use of their land. 
   3. The amount of water that can be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta is limited under federal and state regulations to protect a fish called the smelt, which has been considered endangered for more than a decade.
   4. Smelt do not live long, but losing them could have ripple effects on the broader ecosystem. 
   5. Trump said the water coming into the state is “dead” and called on Newsom, whom he referred to as “Newscum,” to make changes.
   6. “And Gavin Newscum is gonna sign those papers, and if he doesn’t sign those papers, we won’t give him money to put all his fires,” he said.
   7. “And if we don’t give him money to put out his fires, he’s got problems,” Trump continued. “He’s a lousy governor.” 
   8. Trump made the remarks as part of broader critiques of the state and its leaders, along with Vice President Harris, for a litany of issues, including the economy and the number of immigrants entering the state. He sought to tie the issues now facing the state to Harris, who previously served as district attorney of San Francisco, attorney general of California and a U.S. senator for the state. 
   9. Trump argued that his plan would avoid the need for desalinization plants. 
   10. “So California, vote for Trump, and you’re going to have water and you’re going to have growth and you’re going to have prosperity and all those people that are leaving are going to really come back,” he said.
   11. MIKE: Trump is just such a hateful, despicable, deplorable character, with his constant insults and threats and name-calling.
   12. MIKE: What Trump is saying here is that getting impeached for trying to extort political dirt on Biden from President Zelinsky of Ukraine has taught him nothing. Not that we ever assumed that Trump is teachable.
   13. MIKE: What he’s doing here is saying that he would extort political quid pro quos from the governor of California, using a threat to essentially let California burn. He has no thought of the property and lives destroyed, and the people that might die.
   14. MIKE: This threat can only be called evil. And if the threat is evil, it’s reasonable to infer that the person who makes the threat is evil.
   15. MIKE: You are certainly free to draw your own conclusions.
7. This next article from GRIST-dot-COM is from January 2023, but I just found it, and I think it has something useful to offer even after almost 2 years. Even with excerpting, this will be a long read. I hope you’ll forgive me for that, but I think the story has a lot to offer in terms of information and social uplift potential. It also puts a lot of emphasis on vocational education and the merits of that for some folks over university degrees. It’s entitled … — To get off fossil fuels, America is going to need a lot more electricians; A shortage of skilled labor could derail efforts to “electrify everything. By Emily Pontecorvo Reporter | GRIST.ORG | Published Jan 11, 2023. TAGS: Climate + Energy, Trades, Future Jobs, Electrical, Green Energy,
   1. Chanpory Rith, a 42-year-old product designer at the software company Airtable, bought a house in Berkeley, California, with his partner at the end of 2020. … “And then came the joys and tribulations of homeownership,” Rith said.
   2. One of those tribulations began with a plan to install solar panels. … He didn’t have a car but planned on eventually getting an electric vehicle and also wanted to swap out the house’s natural gas appliances for electric versions. Getting solar panels would be a smart first step, he figured, because it might trim his utility bills. But Rith soon found out that the house’s aging electrical panel would need to be upgraded to support rooftop solar. And he had no idea how hard it would be to find someone to do it.
   3. Many of the electricians Rith reached out to didn’t respond. Those who did were booked out for weeks, if not months. …
   4. His first-choice contracting company put him on a long waitlist before it would send anyone out to look at the house. Another gave him an exorbitant quote — more than $50,000 to upgrade the electrical panel, along with installing new, grounded outlets to replace the house’s outdated two-prong outlets. Rith wound up putting the project on hold to do some renovations first. 
   5. Andrew Campbell, executive director of the University of California, Berkeley’s Energy Institute, had a similar experience. Campbell wanted to upgrade the electrical panel on a duplex he owns in Oakland so that he could install electric vehicle chargers for the building’s tenants. But even after finding a company to take the job, a shortage of technicians and the contractor’s overbooked schedule, among other delays, meant it took eight months from the time the first electrician came over until the project was done. …
   6. You could read Rith and Campbell’s troubles as minor inconveniences, or you could read them as warning signs.
   7. To cut greenhouse gas emissions on pace with the best available science, the United States must prepare for a monumental increase in electricity use. Burning fossil fuels to heat homes and get around isn’t compatible with keeping the planet at a livable temperature. Appliances that can be powered by clean electricity already exist to meet all of these needs. 
   8. The race to “electrify everything” is picking up. President Joe Biden’s signature climate legislation, the Inflation Reduction Act, signed in August, contains billions of dollars to help Americans electrify their homes, buy electric vehicles, and install solar panels. Meanwhile, cities all over the country, including New York, Boston, Seattle, and San Francisco are requiring that new buildings run only on electricity, after the city of Berkeley, California, pioneered the legislation in 2019. 
   9. The problem is, most houses aren’t wired to handle the load from electric heating, cooking, and clothes dryers, along with solar panels and vehicle chargers. Rewiring America, a nonprofit that conducts research and advocacy on electrification, estimates that some 60 to 70 percent of single-family homes will need to upgrade to bigger or more modern electrical panels to accommodate a fully electrified house. 
   10. “It’s going to be the electrification worker, the electricians, that are going to see a real surge in demand,” said Panama Bartholomy, executive director of the Building Decarbonization Coalition, a national nonprofit working to get fossil fuels out of homes.
   11. But in the Bay Area, arguably the birthplace of the movement to “electrify everything,” homeowners are struggling to find technicians to upgrade their electrical panels or install electric heat pumps, let alone for everyday repairs. Residential electrical contractors are swamped with calls and struggling to find experienced people to hire. The schools tasked with training the next generation of electricians are tight on funds and short on teachers. It’s a story that’s playing out across the country. And what might be inconvenient today could soon hamstring attempts to cut carbon emissions even as these efforts become more urgent. …
   12. [Borin Reyes’] company has always focused on rewiring homes undergoing renovations rather than new construction. But at the beginning of 2022, he added a new specialty when his business partnered with a company called Qmerit, a middleman between electric vehicle dealerships and electricians. Dealerships send new car owners to Qmerit to get help finding qualified technicians to install EV chargers, and Qmerit connects them with local businesses like Boyes Electric.
   13. Electric vehicles make up less than 1 percent of cars on the road, but that’s changing fast as sales soar. The number of electric vehicles registered in the U.S. jumped nearly 43 percent between 2020 and 2021, according to the Department of Energy. … In California, Washington state, and New York, you won’t even be able to buy a new model with an internal combustion engine after 2035. The number of public charging stations is also growing, so EV owners don’t necessarily need to install their own charging equipment at home, though many do. It’s convenient, and can also turn a car into a backup power source when the lights go out. 
   14. Before Boyes Electric partnered with QMerit, Reyes was installing around one EV charger every week; now it’s up to about five each week. “That’s huge for a small business,” he said. Reyes wants the company to expand into solar installations, too — just not yet. …
   15. “Customers are literally looking for electricians every single day,” he said. “We’re not taking emergency calls anymore because we don’t have the manpower. All of our current technicians are out in the field. They’re busy trying to get jobs done.”
   16. Reyes would like to hire more electricians, but he said there just aren’t any experienced people looking for work; they’re already hired. “It is a problem finding people right now,” he said. “Most of the electrical companies, you can ask around, all of them are busy.”
   17. In 2021, the website Angi, which helps homeowners find services, surveyed 2,400 contractors across different trades. Half reported that they couldn’t fill open positions, and 68 percent said it was a struggle to hire skilled workers. In a recent survey of 661 building contractors by the Associated General Contractors of America, 72 percent reported having open, salaried positions. The number one reason for all the openings: “Available candidates are not qualified to work in the industry.” 
   18. In the past, Reyes recruited workers out of high school and trained them up. But he’s reluctant to do it again. It costs his technicians time, it costs him money, and there’s no guarantee that the people he invests in will stick around because the job market is so competitive. 
   19. The workforce is also aging. Reyes said he knows of a few electricians getting ready for retirement who would like to hand over the business to their kids, but they just aren’t interested.  The way he sees it, younger people are getting lured into the tech industry with the promise of big salaries and just aren’t as interested in getting dirty underneath houses. 
   20. Bureau of Labor Statistics data show that about 21 percent of electricians will have hit retirement age in the next 10 years. The agency estimates that demand for electricians will grow by 7 percent over the same span and that between retirements and new demand, there will be nearly 80,000 job openings in the field every year. That estimate doesn’t account for all the incentives — rebates for solar panels, electrical panels, heat pumps, stoves, cars, and clothes dryers — contained in the Inflation Reduction Act, nor does it account for the possibility that demand might soar if local governments keep pushing to electrify buildings.
   21. Several contractors and labor experts, when asked why electricians are so hard to find, pointed to the widespread belief that the main path to adulthood runs through a four-year university, and the related decline of vocational education in high schools. According to Pew Research, 39 percent of millennials earned a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 29 percent of Gen Xers and 24 to 25 percent of boomers. 
   22. Even for those drawn to a career in the trades, there’s another obstacle: The technical schools built to train them are short of money and people, too. 
   23. In the Bay Area, one of the main ways that aspiring electricians can get into the field is by taking classes at Laney College, a community college in Oakland. The school’s electrical technology program is approved by the State of California’s Industrial Relations Board, meaning students at Laney can count their hours toward the requirements to take the state certification exam. More than 380 students have earned an associate degree or certificate in the program over the past five years.
   24. But this past year, Laney’s program almost fell apart after one of its teachers, Forough Hashemi, announced she would be retiring at the end of the spring 2022 semester. Hashemi had been teaching six classes each semester, essentially holding the program together, and to some students, it felt like the fate of the entire program was in question. 
   25. David Pitt, a student at Laney, was worried he wouldn’t be able to finish the required courses. Pitt got interested in becoming an electrician a few years ago while volunteering for a solar company. He enjoyed being outside, working with his hands, and getting away from his computer screen. The volunteering gig soon turned into a paid, part-time job, but all he was really allowed to do was grunt work, like mounting solar panels and running wires. In order to do the interesting stuff — design a system, interpret an electrical panel, actually connect the solar panels to it, and maybe work his way up to owning his own business — he needed to become a certified electrician. So he enrolled part-time in Laney’s electrical program.
   26. Without Hashemi, however, it was unclear whether the school could keep offering the required classes. So Pitt and his classmates, assisted by an adjunct professor, Mark Prudowsky, arranged a meeting with the school’s deans to ask what would happen next. The deans assured them that they would try to replace Hashemi, though they admitted they were having trouble finding anyone interested.
   27. “This is an issue for a lot of trade skills disciplines,” said Alejandria Tomas, the career and technical education dean at Laney, in an interview last summer. By that point, Tomas had already tried emailing every electrical business in the county and felt she had exhausted every resource she had in trying to recruit a new teacher. (Borin Reyes was one of those who turned her down.) 
   28. “Employees usually earn more when they work in the field than teaching, so it’s hard to recruit,” Tomas said. 
   29. Pitt only needed two more classes to finish his required coursework — one on motors and another on lightbulbs. But by the time the fall semester started, Laney had yet to make any full-time hires, and the lightbulbs class wasn’t offered. 
   30. Prudowsky blamed the school, the district, and the state for not investing enough in Laney’s electrician program. The lack of funds meant requiring one full-time faculty member to teach up to six classes per semester with up to 40 students in every class. (Hashemi did not respond to multiple requests for an interview.)
   31. “If California is even going to come close to meeting its very ambitious goals, it’s going to have to train a whole cohort of electricians and technicians,” Prudowsky said. “And if they keep underfunding these programs and overloading these classrooms and not providing enough resources, it won’t happen.” …
   32. In January, nearly a year after the search began, the school finally hired a new full-time faculty member. According to Prudowsky, however, the big problem — “a very poor understanding of the need to fund and indeed, expand funding for the program” — remained.
   33. Community colleges like Laney are one of a handful of pathways into the profession. Another runs through the unions, which offer free classes and paid experience through their apprenticeship programs. There’s often a higher barrier to entry than simply signing up for classes: In the Bay Area, for instance, an aspiring electrician has to pass an exam and go through an interview process to get accepted. And there are limited openings.  
   34. Labor advocates like Beli Acharya, the executive director of the Construction Trades Workforce Initiative, make the case that California should enact policies that favor union contractors, which would increase demand for apprentices and enable the unions to accept more applicants. Today, according to Acharya, most residential building work is handled by nonunion contractors, though that’s not because union contractors aren’t interested in working on houses. She said they are undercut by cheaper, nonunion companies. 
   35. Acharya’s organization is a nonprofit partner to several building trades unions in the East Bay. It aims to help people who are currently underrepresented in the trades gain access to these careers. Nearly 90 percent of electricians are white, compared with 78 percent of the country’s workforce, and less than 2 percent are women, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. 
   36. “Our goal is to ensure that as public dollars become available, quality jobs are being produced,” Acharya said. “If we’re really trying to lift up our communities and create quality jobs, there needs to be labor standards put in place so that our community members are actually benefiting from the work that’s going to be developed through all of this construction.” 
   37. The Construction Trades Workforce Initiative is one of several organizations in the Bay Area trying to entice more people into jobs connected to clean energy, like electrical work. Another nonprofit headquartered in Oakland, GRID Alternatives, builds solar projects and trains people to install them. GRID partners with local organizations, like Homeboy Industries, a gang intervention program, to introduce former inmates as well as other underrepresented people, to careers in solar. Those admitted to GRID’s training receive “wraparound supportive services” that address barriers they might have to participating, like helping them get driver’s licenses, open bank accounts, or, for those formerly incarcerated, find attorneys. …
   38. Several experts interviewed for this story stressed their belief that any workforce development program has to be tightly connected to the people already doing this work — the contractors.
   39. “The successful programs are tied directly to employer needs,” said Laure-Jeanne Davignon, the vice president for workforce development at the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, a clean energy policy nonprofit. …
   40. The Inflation Reduction Act includes $200 million to states over the next decade to train contractors in energy efficiency upgrades and electrification. Bartholomy, from the Building Decarbonization Coalition, said some of that money could go toward paying a portion of a trainee’s wages, enabling contractors like Borin to take on more trainees. (Some states also offer tax credits to employers who bring on apprentices, but California isn’t one of them.) 
   41. One challenge with involving contractors, though, is that many of them aren’t convinced of the benefits of switching to electric appliances. Take heat pumps. They transfer heat from the outside air indoors, even on very cold days, to provide space heating, and work in reverse to provide cooling in the summertime. They’re more expensive than a gas furnace up front but can pay off with savings in the long run. Even so, homeowners recount encounters with contractors who tried to persuade them out of buying electric heat pumps, raising doubts with customers about the higher price and whether they work as well as natural gas systems. 
   42. California is trying to change contractors’ minds through a $120 million initiative called TECH Clean California. A big part of it involves training contractors how to install electric heat pumps and water heaters, but it also lays out available rebates and other subsidies that would help sell them to customers. The program launched in the middle of 2021, and so far, more than 600 contractors have participated, according to Evan Kamei, a program manager at TECH. Kamei said the initiative is also working to increase cooperation between existing training providers, like community colleges, utilities, and manufacturers.   
   43. While education, training opportunities, funding, and stronger collaboration between the networks of companies, schools, and contractors could all help ensure that people interested in becoming electricians get a shot at making it into the field, they still don’t necessarily address one of the biggest obstacles to “electrifying everything” — getting people interested in the trade in the first place. So how can the United States inspire more people like David Pitts and Borin Reyes? …
   44. Asked if he had any ideas for how to get more young people interested in the field, Reyes didn’t skip a beat. “Showing them how much money they can make. That is the key.”
   45. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mean annual wage for an electrician in the U.S. is about $63,000 compared with an average of $58,000 for all occupations. But there’s a big range. In the Bay Area, the top-paying metropolitan area for electricians in the country, the average is $93,900, with many contractors topping six figures.
   46. Another step is to raise awareness. Davignon’s organization, the Interstate Renewable Energy Council, recently won a $2 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy to develop an outreach campaign to advertise careers in renovating houses to be more energy efficient, known as “weatherization.” She said she hopes to raise more money to promote other jobs in clean energy, like electricians. One idea is a twist on the classic U.S. Army recruitment ad along the lines of: Your country needs you to be an energy hero.
   47. “That’s the kind of thing we really need to start to remove the stigma from these trade jobs,” Davignon said. “You know, is the construction job sexy enough for someone or do they also want to be saving the world?”
   48. MIKE: There’s a lot to think about and digest here. Some of it is about national need. There’s also the job-creating potential for underemployed individuals and communities.
   49. MIKE: As someone who didn’t finish college and worked as a self-employed person in a trade for 20 years, I feel I have some pertinent insights into the notion of vocational training as a way to develop good-paying skills. A trade is also a potential business gateway for those with entrepreneurial inclinations.
   50. MIKE: The average person will probably have at least 3-5 different careers during their working lives. Trades are no different. There are lots of reasons for that, having to do with changes in the economy, changes in technology and how that impacts jobs and hiring, changes in one’s physical state, and plain old burnout.
   51. MIKE: Including this very show you’re listening to, at the age of 73, I’ve probably had 5 entirely different careers.
   52. MIKE: The upshot is that anyone going into any career or industry should probably not plan to do that same job in that same industry for their entire lives. The job and industry will change and grow, and so will the person.
   53. MIKE: I was born with a strong mechanical aptitude. Even as a young child, I was the toy repairer among my friends. So when I found myself to be competent in a well-paying trade, I felt like I’d found my professional home.
   54. MIKE: But it’s important to note that while trades can pay well, they can be hard on a person’s body.
   55. MIKE: Physical labor, even highly skilled physical labor, can physically wear on a person. It can impact hips, shoulders and knees. It can affect the spine and neck. There can also be repetitive motion injuries.
   56. MIKE: But for the 20 years I was active in my trade, I mostly enjoyed it and often found considerable satisfaction in the favorable reactions customers had to my work.
   57. MIKE: I started my trade when I was 28. By my mid-40s, I knew I had to graduate to a different segment of my business that didn’t require so much physical investment from my body. In my case, life happened while I was making other plans, but that doesn’t mean I regret my choice to enter my trade.
   58. MIKE: Electricians work hard for the money, but the money can be very good, and the work can be gratifying. Earnings will depend on skill level, market demand, and geographic location.
   59. MIKE: I expect that there will be a very strong demand for electricians for at least the next 25 years, which is a pretty good career horizon. Eventually becoming a master electrician also opens many future paths as age begins to challenge one’s body.
   60. MIKE: Then there are the professional growth aspects of a trade. There is the possibility of becoming an electrical contractor with more-junior electricians working for you. You can become a general contractor with deep knowledge of the electrical needs of a project.
   61. MIKE: Two of the most important parts of any project in which humans will live or work are electrical and plumbing, so intimate knowledge of the various electrical needs of a project can be a huge asset for business success as well as for your future customers.
   62. MIKE: In one’s later years, as this article points out, there will be an immense need for electrician instructors. Teaching young people the electrical trade will be a white collar transition that can still pay well, put less stress on an aging body, and also yield immense job satisfaction.
   63. MIKE: The decision to pursue any career path can be daunting. It’s a challenge akin to trying to foresee the future. Questions of stability, income potential, growth potential, personal interests and capabilities, options for future growth, etc. make these into high-stakes choices. All anyone can really do is try to choose widely, cross their fingers and hope for the best.
   64. MIKE: Life will always require mid-course corrections, which is why it’s always important to have a branching tree of future possibilities in any course one takes. But seeing a trade as a life choice does offer many possibilities for building a secure and interesting future.
   65. MIKE: And that’s why I’ve spent so much time on this story and my analysis of it.
8. The potential merger of two steel industry titans has environmentalists worried; It’s already possible to produce steel in a more climate-friendly way, but neither U.S. Steel nor Nippon Steel seems ready to adapt. By Gautama Mehta Environmental Justice Fellow | GRIST.ORG | Published Sep 13, 2024. TAGS: Climate + Cities, S. Steel, Nippon Steel, Cleveland-Cliffs Steel, Carbon-Intensive, Steelmaking, Blast Furnaces, Direct Reduction Steelmaking, Green Hydrogen,
   1. US Steel, once the world’s largest company of any kind, can take substantial credit for the growth of American industrial power in the 20th century. But in recent decades, it’s been shuttering mills and shedding workers. Now, the iconic Pittsburgh-based manufacturer is set to be acquired by a Japanese steelmaker, Nippon Steel — if the federal government allows the deal to proceed.
   2. Earlier this month, reports emerged that the Biden administration is preparing to block the nearly $15 billion merger on the grounds that it presents a threat to America’s national security interests. The United Steelworkers union opposes it, fearing future layoffs and weaker labor protections under new ownership. So do both major candidates for president, who are vying for votes in the Rust Belt.
   3. Supporters of the deal, like the Washington Post editorial board and the nonpartisan think tank The Atlantic Council, have cast the politicians’ opposition as election-season pandering, and argued that the national security rationale on which Biden may block it is flimsy. But one area, in which the question of whether the merger goes through could be particularly consequential, has gone largely unremarked upon in the conversation: what it means for the climate.
   4. Some environmentalists say the deal could slow the crucial progress that the steel industry must make in order to decarbonize. Their argument stems from the fact that both U.S. Steel and Nippon Steel have been slow, compared to industry peers, to adopt the most impactful decarbonization technologies, even with federal funding available in the U.S. to do so.
   5. The most common process by which primary steel is produced is massively carbon-intensive. The reasons for this lie in chemistry. Steel is made from iron, but the form in which iron ore occurs in the Earth’s crust is mostly iron oxide (similar to rust). In order to get usable iron from it, one needs to remove the oxygen. For centuries, iron-makers have accomplished this by using coke, a fuel made from coal, which is heated alongside iron ore in a blast furnace at such high temperatures that the iron melts into a liquid while the oxygen bonds with the carbon in the coke and produces carbon dioxide.
   6. Blast furnaces are responsible for the lion’s share of carbon emissions from steelmaking, and the inextricability of carbon emissions from the ironmaking process is a large part of the reason why, overall, steelmaking is responsible for 7 percent of global carbon emissions, and a quarter of industrial carbon emissions. These percentages will likely grow as other sectors of the economy are decarbonized.
   7. In the U.S., demand for steel is also expected to grow dramatically over the next decade to provide the raw material of the industrial growth sparked by the Inflation Reduction Act and the planned buildout of clean energy infrastructure and transmission lines. For these reasons, the task of decarbonizing steel is as urgent as it is difficult and expensive.
   8. Fortunately, there is a solution on offer that has recently become viable due to new technological advances — and one that the Biden administration has sought to heavily subsidize: replacing blast furnaces with a process called direct reduction, and using hydrogen as a reducing agent in place of carbon, ultimately discharging water rather than carbon dioxide. “The chemistry is sound, it’s being built, it’s been piloted and demonstrated,” said Yong Kwon, a senior advisor with the Sierra Club’s Industrial Transformation Campaign. “The question [now is]: Will industries adopt it?”
   9. There are eight operating steel mills in the United States that make “primary” steel (i.e., newly created steel, rather than the generally lower-quality “secondary” steel produced from scrap metal). Three are owned by U.S. Steel. Cleveland-Cliffs, the owner of the other five, has also made an offer to buy U.S. Steel and has been much more proactive in making the shift to greener production.
   10. “The Department of Energy has made available a great deal of money to do partnerships with industry to demonstrate the value of decarbonized projects,” said Todd Tucker, director of the industrial policy and trade program at the Roosevelt Institute.
   11. Both Cleveland-Cliffsand S. Steelhave availed themselves of such funding to embark on decarbonization programs. U.S. Steel has partnered with the Department of Energy on carbon capture projects at several of their steel mills, and funded research and development of hydrogen-based ironmaking technology. The company also plans to install a carbon capture program at a blast furnace at its steel mill in Gary, Indiana, which it says will turn up to 50,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually into limestone — a tiny fraction of that facility’s overall emissions. But critics note that U.S. Steel has yet to take a step as ambitious as its rival by actually replacing one of its blast furnaces with direct reduction of iron.
   12. One of the recently announced Cleveland-Cliffs projects will replace a blast furnace at a steel mill in Middletown, Ohio, with a direct reduced iron plant — part of a $575 million award from the Department of Energy. It will not be fossil fuel-free at first. While the company works to secure a reliable source of hydrogen, that plant will initially rely on natural gas to make iron, a process which will still produce carbon emissions, though fewer than the current coal-based process. But in the long term, as low-carbon or carbon-free “green hydrogen” is developed, the new technology presents an opportunity for steel mills to shed their carbon footprint and the Rust Belt to regain lost jobs.
   13. The stakes of the potential U.S. Steel-Nippon Steel merger are perhaps best illustrated in the city of Gary, Indiana, which was built in 1906 by U.S. Steel to house workers at its Gary Works steel mill. That mill is home to the country’s largest and most carbon-emitting blast furnace — and it’s nearing the end of its lifespan. This situation hypothetically presents the furnace’s owner with an ideal opportunity to switch to a cleaner technology, with federal funding on the table to do so. But in August, Nippon Steel announced its prospective plans for Gary Works, which include a $300 million investment in relining the furnace to extend its lifespan for another 20 years. With this announcement, Kwon said, “Not only have they back in Japan not pursued solutions that we feel are responsible; they’ve now explicitly come out and said that they’re not going to pursue the solution that is on the table for reducing the climate change and public health harms that are currently produced by the iron-making process.”
   14. MIKE: There are certain types of products for which “primary steel” — the kind historically produced by blast furnaces — is irreplaceable. Among these products are cars and trucks, and military equipment like tanks and armored personnel carriers. Thus, while domestic production capability of blast furnace steel per se is not specifically a national defense priority, the kind of steel produced by blast furnaces, is.
   15. MIKE: If there is an alternative to coal-based manufacture of this primary steel that is less polluting, and even cheaper and more efficient in the long run, than the old blast furnaces, then our steel industries should certainly be moving in that direction. Aside from being imperative for the national defense, it would also make American steel more competitive on the world market and aid further in revitalizing this essential US industry.
   16. MIKE: This actually represents another reason to take a hard look at Nippon Steel’s plans for US Steel. Their current plans for extending the life of Gary’s coal-based blast furnaces amounts to extending the life of what appears to be an obsolescent technology that already has trouble cost-wise competing on both the domestic and international steel markets.
   17. MIKE: Aside from how decisions on Nippon Steel’s acquisition offer of US Steel may affect US relations with our important Japanese ally, it’s worth considering how Nippon’s plans actually will impact the long-term competitiveness of American-made steel.

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