Category: Environment

Rich Alaskan donor gave $250K to Trump after EPA reversed decision on Pebble Mine

ABC News

Rich Alaskan donor gave $250K to Trump after EPA reversed decision on Pebble Mine

By Stephanie Ebbs     June 16, 2018

Bill Roth/Anchorage Daily News/MCT via Getty Images

A wealthy activist who has funded efforts to block a proposed mine in Alaska’s Bristol Bay donated $250,000 to President Donald Trump‘s re-election effort six weeks after the administration abruptly decided to prevent the mine from moving forward.

The move to block the Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay from moving forward seems to diverge from a trend in policy under the leadership of Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt — seen as one of President Donald Trump’s most productive cabinet members in moving to undo environmental regulations put in place under the Obama administration. During the Trump presidency, the EPA in 2017 had previously allowed the mine to move forward.

The EPA said the change in course was because the environmental risk was too great and announced on January 26 that the mine would not immediately move forward.

Robert Gillam made his second and largest donation to Trump Victory Fund just weeks later, donating $250,000 on March 9, according to FEC filings.

Gillam has previously spent as much as $2.5 million to block the Pebble Mine from moving forward in Alaska’s fertile fishing ground called the Bristol Bay. He has been advocating against the mine since 2005, according to an Alaska state report. He declined to comment for this story.

Robert B. Gillam, CEO of McKinley Capital.

Gillam has previously donated to the Republican National Committee, Donald Trump’s presidential campaign and Republican campaigns in Alaska.

He went to Wharton with Trump and met with him at Mar-a-Lago the weekend before he made a $250,000 donation to the president’s Victory Fund, according to a report in E&E News. Gillam owns a fishing lodge in the area, according to public meeting records, and has said that the mine would hurt the local salmon population.

Last November he wrote in an editorial that the mine project was “doomed.”

“For more than a decade, I have taken on the battle against the Pebble Mine, because, more than any other development proposal in our state’s history, it threatens to forfeit to foreign mining companies an invaluable part of our heritage, something Alaskans cannot afford to lose -— and will never stop defending —- Bristol Bay; the last great salmon fishery on the planet,” Gillam wrote in the opinion piece in a local newspaper.

The Pebble Mine project was blocked by the Obama administration in 2014, citing harm to the environment that the EPA said would be caused by mining in the area. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt reversed that decision in May 2017 and allowed the permitting process to move forward as well as accept public comments on the process.

In late January, the EPA abruptly slowed the project again, saying the agency has “serious concerns” about the risk mining could pose to fishing operations and local residents around Bristol Bay. The agency didn’t go so far as to block the mine completely but said the permit application “must clear a high bar” and provide information on how the mine will impact the surrounding area.

The company behind the Pebble Mine project announced in May that a major partner ended their agreement to support the mine, adding more uncertainty to the future of the project.

ABC News’ Soorin Kim contributed to this report.

Depression-era program could help farmers in trade war

CNBC – Politics

Depression-era program could help farmers in trade war but still won’t make them ‘whole,’ says former USDA secretary

A Depression-era program could help farmers in the trade war with China, according to Dan Glickman, who served as agriculture secretary in the Clinton administration.

Glickman said other options also could be used within the agriculture agency but still won’t make farmers “whole.”

On Friday, China announced tariffs on $34 billion worth of American products, including soybeans, corn, wheat, beef, dairy products and sorghum.

Jeff Daniels        June 15, 2018

        Getty Images. Soybean farmers in Mississippi County, Arkansas.

Although President Donald Trump has offered to make it up to farmers in a trade war, there’s no way to fully cushion all the potential losses that producers could suffer if there’s a significant reduction in soybeans and other exports, according to a former agriculture secretary.

On Friday, China announced a 25 percent tariff on $34 billion worth of American products, including soybeans, corn, wheat, beef, dairy products and sorghum. It followed the White House earlier in the day announcing plans to impose tariffs on more than 800 Chinese imports worth approximately $34 billion.

Earlier this year, Trump spoke about escalating trade tensions with China and said his administration essentially had the backs of farmers and would “make it up to them” and that in the end they “will be better off than they ever were.”

Many of the farm products targeted by the Chinese are grown in states where Trump received strong support during the 2016 presidential election. The latest tariffs announced by Beijing are set to take effect July 6.

   Former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman.  Bill Clark | Roll Call | Getty Images

“This is very worrisome for American agriculture generally,” said Dan Glickman, who served during the Clinton administration as agriculture secretary. “The business model of agriculture is an export business model, particularly for the program crops such as wheat, corn, cotton, rice and especially soybeans.”

Glickman also said there could be fallout for GOP lawmakers from the Trump administration’s actions on trade. He said farmers and rural communities are likely to feel the pain if there is a significant decline in agricultural exports.

Even with trade tensions threatening American agricultural exports, some farmers remain steadfast in their support for Trump.

“President Trump and the administration have the best interests of America in mind,” said Joe Steinkamp, a soybean, corn and wheat grower near Evansville, Indiana. “They’re trying to do their best and say they’re going to take care of farmers — and we appreciate that.”

According to Glickman, there are several statutes available to the U.S. Department of Agriculture that could be used to help farmers, including programs through the Commodity Credit Corp. The CCC, a federal agency set up during the Great Depression, could potentially buy surplus farm products and support growers.

“This [CCC] is the part of the USDA that has almost unlimited amount of funds to sometimes make up the difference in farm prices,” said Glickman. “Sometimes they can buy commodities for school meal programs or for other hunger programs.”

Glickman, who now is executive director of the Aspen Institute’s Congressional Program, said other options available include purchasing programs tied to food humanitarian relief for famines and natural disasters that also are part of USDA.

Regardless, the former U.S. congressman and Clinton administration official said it’s “doubtful that farmers can be made ‘whole’ for all economic losses resulting from a trade war impacting American ag exports. It leaves farmers in an unstable, vulnerable position.”

Glickman said the trade war with China and other countries “involves great risk because, from a macro perspective, about 40 percent of American agricultural products are for export.”

Overall, U.S. agricultural exports to China represent almost $20 billion annually for American farmers.

The U.S. exports about $14 billion worth of soybeans to China, according to the USDA. China buys roughly half of the U.S. soybean exports, and roughly one in three rows of soybeans grown on the nation’s farms goes to the world’s second-largest economy, according to the American Soybean Association.

China also is the world’s largest cotton consumer and ranks as the second-largest buyer of American cotton, with one out of every five bales headed there.

The latest round of tariffs by Beijing follows retaliatory action taken in April by the Chinese against other agricultural products. Effective April 2, China imposed new tariffs of up to 25 percent on U.S. pork, nuts, wine and fresh fruit. The move was in response to the White House earlier announcing a 25 percent duty on steel imports and 10 percent on aluminum imports.

At the same time, Mexico this month announced retaliatory tariffs of 20 percent on U.S. pork exports in response to the Trump administration’s duties on imported steel and aluminum products. They also targeted apples and potatoes with 20 percent duties as well as tariffs of 20 to 25 percent on some dairy products and bourbon.

Earlier this year, Trump instructed U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue “to use his broad authority to implement a plan to protect our farmers and agricultural interests,” according to a statement issued in April. But little in the way of details have been offered of any specific plans.

“It’s not probably very smart in these kind of things to lay all your cards on the table about what you’re going to do,” Perdue told reporters in April.

Still, Glickman said he has “a lot of confidence in the current agriculture secretary, Perdue, that he’s going to use all of his authorities available to him. But there’s only so much he can do.”

Glickman said there’s also uncertainty out there for farmers when considering other tariffs U.S. trading partners can impose on U.S. agricultural products. “We’re most vulnerable in retaliation on agriculture, because that’s the one area where exports are more critically important than almost any segment of the American economy,” he said.

Enraged farmers and lawmakers confront Pruitt during Heartland tour

ThinkProgress

Enraged farmers and lawmakers confront Pruitt during Heartland tour

Rural workers slammed White House favoritism of fossil fuels.

E.A. Crunden     June 15, 2018

Ethanol Plant in Rosholt, South Dakota. Credit: Myloupe/UIG via Getty Images

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) head Scott Pruitt is facing a torrent of accusations and anger as he tours through the U.S. heartland. Farmers and Midwestern politicians are accusing the official of prioritizing fossil fuel industries over the interests of the region, which has served as a reliable base for President Trump.

Touring through states including Kansas, Nebraska, and South Dakota this week, Pruitt came under fire repeatedly by constituents for reasons unrelated to his lengthy list of scandals. The subject of at least a dozen federal investigations relating to financial and ethics decisions, Pruitt encountered questions of a very different variety in the Midwest.

“To be honest, Administrator Pruitt, we’re mad as hell,” Kansas farmer Dennis McNich told Pruitt earlier this week. “Today, the American farmer is struggling to make ends meet and our industry is on the cusp of financial ruin in many areas of the country.”

Oil, gas, and coal have seen a favorable reception under the Trump administration, which has rolled back Obama-era initiatives and regulations in favor of fossil fuels. While those moves are in line with the president’s conservative base, farming states argue they’ve come at a cost.

At the center of that contention is ethanol, a crucial source of income for corn-producing states. Under the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), oil refiners are required to blend ethanol and biodiesel with petroleum, a requirement the corn industry welcomes and the oil industry has repeatedly lobbied against.

China hits U.S. farmers where it hurts after White House trade threats

Small refineries are sometimes granted waivers in order to avoid outsized costs under the RFS. But under Pruitt, the EPA has granted a number of controversial waivers, including one to Oklahoma billionaire Carl Icahn. That trend sparked a request from 13 Midwestern senators, including Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), demanding that the EPA cease issuing such waivers.

That hasn’t happened and farmers are angry. “We ain’t going to be played for a sucker. And that’s what they’re trying to do,” Grassley told the New York Times this week.

His comments came after fellow Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst (R) called Pruitt “about as swampy as you get.” A number of other rural Republican lawmakers have similarly slammed Pruitt over seeming favoritism towards oil and gas over corn and agriculture.

“EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt is embarrassing President Trump,” reads one ad currently running in the region and backed by the conservative American Future Fund, which is based in Iowa and receives funding from at least one wealthy ethanol producer.

Iowa is not among the states on Pruitt’s agenda this week, but the administrator received an earful in the areas he did visit.

“My personal opinion is farmers are demanding accountability and I think that Mr. Pruitt probably is a dead man walking,” Dane Hicks, the GOP chairman for Anderson County, Kansas, told Politico.  “I can’t imagine he rebounds from this in any way to salvage his position. I would expect his resignation soon.”

Kansas Corn Growers Association President Ken McCauley had similarly harsh words. McCauley blasted Pruitt for coming to Kansas to “take a few photos with smiling farmers and tell the President that corn farmers are okay with his actions” rather than addressing the region’s needs.

“When you look at what EPA is doing, they are most definitely picking winners and losers and right now, ethanol is the loser,” McCauley said. He went on to add that the “EPA’s attacks on ethanol don’t just hurt plants like EKAE, they hurt farmers, rural communities, and American consumers who benefit from ethanol with lower prices and cleaner air.”

As trade war rhetoric grows, Appalachia and the Heartland fear backlash

Displeasure with Pruitt runs deep, but farmers aren’t completely satisfied with Trump either. Ongoing trade feuding between the Trump administration and a number of key trading partners, including Mexico, Canada, China, and the European Union, has sparked retaliatory tariffs predominately targeting the Midwest and the South. One particular source of contention is soybeans, a major export for the region. Responding to aggressive trade threats from Trump, China hit out at U.S. soybeans, threatening a 25 percent tariff and infuriating U.S. farmers in the process.

Trump has also failed to remove gasoline restrictions that limit ethanol amounts, despite promising farmers he would do so. Pruitt has said he supports lifting that restriction, but farmers have expressed frustration and skepticism.

“Agriculture is not very happy with Mr. Pruitt at this point,” said David Fremark, whose family grows and sells products including corn and soybeans in South Dakota.

“He’s done some good things, but this far and away overshadows everything he’s done,” Fremark said.

Pruitt’s visit to Nebraska on Thursday marked his final stop during the tour. It was not immediately clear to what extent the resounding criticism the administrator faced throughout the week would factor into future policy decisions or whether it would hinder his standing with the president.

India facing its worst water shortage in history, report says

CNN

India facing its worst water shortage in history, report says

By Swati Gupta      June 15, 2018

Indian women fetch water from a pit in the bed of Lokpal Sagar Lake in Madhya Pradesh.

Story Highlights

Six hundred million people are dealing with high to extreme water shortage

“We have 4% of the global water and 16% of the global population,” an expert notes

(CNN)India is facing its worst water shortage in history. Six hundred million people are dealing with high to extreme water shortage, according to a report by Niti Aayog, a policy think tank for the Indian government.

The report states that an average of 200,000 Indian lives are lost every year due to inadequate supply or contamination of water.

Sustainable water development has seen slow progress in India in recent years. Though 80% of the country’s states have water conservation legislation, bad data management and nonexistent pricing of water have kept the country from making significant change, the report states.

Poor irrigation techniques and severe contamination of groundwater have brought India to the edge of this crisis.

India is predominantly an agricultural country, with 80% of its water used for irrigation, the report says. The irrigation practices followed by farmers are inefficient at best.

Cape Town rejoices as rain falls on drought-stricken city

“Policies like several states giving free electricity to farmers or giving financial support for groundwater extraction — borewells and tube wells — results in uncontrolled exploitation and wastage of resource,” said Suresh Rohilla, director of urban water management at the Centre for Science and Environment.

Drip irrigation, which is a method to provide an exact amount of water directly to the root of the plant, has seen few customers. The implementation is costly for the average farmer, and state government provides limited support, said Samrat Basak, director for urban water at the World Resources Institute.

“Primarily, water is not valued in India. It is very cheap in India. People think it is free,” Basak added.

According to the report, three-quarters of the Indian population is affected by contaminated water, and 20% of the country’s disease is thought to directly correlate.

India does not have an adequate number of sewage treatment plants, so untreated urban wastewater is often added to water flowing downstream — the same contaminated water used in rural areas for drinking, according to the report.

Twenty-one major Indian cities are estimated to run out of groundwater by 2020 — just two years away.

Indian residents wait to collect drinking water in Shimla as the city faces water shortage.

One hundred million people, including those in the large cities of Delhi, Bangalore and Hyderabad, will be living in zero groundwater cities, according to the report.

“People think that if they own the land, they own the water. India as a country extracts the highest amount of groundwater in the world,” Basak said.

As India develops and grows to support its 1.3 billion people, the country is on the brink of an inescapable crisis.

Some states have shown a marked improvement in water quality standards during the past year.

“There have been time to time policies and programs launched by central and state governments,” Rohilla said. However, the government has not shown that it is serious enough to translate its goals into reality,” he added.

Authorities have launched better water management practices and legislation for the protection and restoration of water bodies, the report says.

The initiative to release this report is a step in the right direction, Basak said.

State governments have control over water-related policies, and the lack of legislation for groundwater extraction and the inability to price water for every home due to political constraints has led to a paralysis in the formation of a sustainable framework.

Cities have seen a return to the use of water tankers due to a lack of groundwater and in turn no water being supplied to the taps in people’s homes.

At a single tap at the back of the tanker, hundreds of people line up with cans and containers to get a few liters every day.

“We have 4% of the global water and 16% of the global population. The minute you bring this statistic into the equation, there is a non-rocket-science understanding of how this has happened,” Basak said.

New Delhi orders construction halt as pollution levels soar

Associated Press

New Delhi orders construction halt as pollution levels soar

AP      June 14, 2018

NEW DELHI –  New Delhi officials have ordered a two-day halt to construction in an attempt to reduce choking pollution that has cloaked the city in smog and dust.

The government’s Central Pollution Control Board rated the city’s air quality Friday as “severe” — the worst possible category — for the fourth day in a row.

New Delhi’s level of PM2.5, tiny particulate matter that can dangerously clog lungs, exceeded 170 Friday morning, more than six times higher than the World Health Organization considers safe.

The New Delhi government has made scattered attempts in recent years to try to control worsening air pollution, including stricter emission norms for cars and a tax on diesel-fueled trucks entering the city. But the pollution has only gotten worse.

Is the Trans Mountain Pipeline (and Other Fossil Fuel Investments) a Future Stranded Asset?

Resilience

Building a world of resilient communities

Is the Trans Mountain Pipeline (and Other Fossil Fuel Investments) a Future Stranded Asset?

 By Martin Bush. Orig. pub in DeSmog Blog    June 11, 2018

Reposted with permission from ClimateZone.org.

The Dakota Access pipeline being installed between farms, as seen from 50th Avenue in New Salem, North Dakota. Credit: Tony Webster, CC By SA 2.0

Several major economies, including the U.S. and Canada, rely heavily on fossil fuel production and exports. But the surging market penetration of renewable energy technologies, energy efficiency improvements, and climate emission policies are certain to substantially reduce the global demand for fossil fuels.

In a seminal paper published a week ago in Nature Climate Change, researchers present the results of sophisticated multi-dimensional modeling of the macro-economic impacts of future technology transformations and climate change policy, as the demand for fossil fuels declines and the price of oil falls.

This is a peer-reviewed paper that was scrutinized by other experts for almost a year before it was accepted for publication. Its warnings should be taken seriously.

Irrespective of whether or not new climate policies are adopted, global demand growth for fossil fuels is already slowing due to the accelerating transition to a low carbon global economy. Given the pace of low-carbon technology market penetration, fossil fuel assets are likely to become stranded due to advances in renewable energy deployment, improvements in energy efficiency, and the electrification of the transportation sector.

There can be no doubt that a global energy transition is fully underway. Last year was another record-breaking year for renewable energy — characterized by the largest ever increase in renewable power capacity, falling costs, increased investment, and advances in enabling technologies.

Solar photovoltaic capacity installations were off the chart — nearly double those of wind power (in second place) — and adding more net capacity than coal, natural gas, and nuclear power combined. Check out the numbers.

The Paris Agreement aims to limit the increase in global average temperatures to below 2°C. Attaining this objective absolutely requires that a fraction of existing reserves of fossil fuels remain in the ground, and that a part of present production capacity remains unused — effectively becoming stranded assets.

Since investors had assumed that these reserves will be commercialized, the stocks of listed fossil fuel companies may soon be judged to be over-valued. This situation gives rise to the possibility of a “carbon bubble” — which may eventually burst with global economic consequences.

The modeling results show that the lower demand for fossil fuels leads to substantial stranded fossil fuel assets if climate change policies are not adopted. For individual countries, the effects vary depending on their  marginal costs of production, with oil production becoming concentrated in OPEC member countries–where costs are lower. Regions with higher marginal costs experience a steep decline in production (for instance Russia), or risk losing a substantial part of their oil and gas industries — like Canada and the U.S.

The Sell-out

The magnitude of the economic impact depends on a variety of factors. The analysis suggests that the behavior of low-cost producers and/or the adoption of 2°C policies can lead to an amplification of the losses. If low-cost producers decide to increase their ratio of production relative to reserves to outplay other asset owners and minimize their losses by selling out early–in effect a “sell-out” — this strategy has a major and very negative impact on higher cost producers.

The low carbon transition generates a modest GDP and employment increase in regions with limited exposure to fossil fuel production (for example, most of the EU and Japan). This is due to a reduction of the trade imbalance arising from fossil fuel imports, and higher employment arising from new investment in low carbon technologies. The improvement occurs despite the general increase in energy prices and hence costs for energy intensive industries.

However, fossil fuel exporters experience a steep decline in their output and employment due to the near shutdown of their fossil fuel industry. These patterns emerge even though there is only a modest overall impact on global GDP — indicating the impacts are primarily distributional with clear winners — the EU and China, and clear losers — the U.S. and Canada.

Gains and Losses

The figure below shows the gains and losses for major economies including the U.S. and Canada through to 2035.  The units are in trillions of U.S. dollars. The principal winners are the EU, China and India. The main losers are the U.S. and Canada.

Cumulative GDP gains and losses by country/region. Credit: Mercure et al., Nature Climate Change 2018. 

Although the U.S. losses are larger in absolute terms, the percentage loss of GDP for Canada is much larger — increasing to over 20 percent within the next ten years. Unemployment increases to around 8 percent over the same time frame. These projections are shown in the graphs below.

Percentage change in GDP. Credit: Mercure et al., Nature Climate Change 2018. 

For Canada, the higher marginal costs of oil sands production (including transport to tidewater via pipelines or oil trains) doom the industry to a future of increasingly curtailed production and stranded assets.

It’s in the context of these long term macroeconomic projections that the proposed Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline should be viewed. Within a decade there will be no market for the oil sands production of heavy oil and bitumen. Low-cost producers, sensing the end of an era, will start to sell off their assets. Oil prices will tumble.

It makes no sense to build a pipeline intended to increase production from the oil sands when even maintaining the existing level of production is seriously in doubt.

Justin Trudeau, now the proud owner of an obsolete and very expensive pipeline, should check the fine print.

Maybe he’s still got a few days where he can change his mind.

Capitalism is killing the planet and needs to change, says investor Jeremy Grantham

CNBC

Capitalism is killing the planet and needs to change, says investor Jeremy Grantham

“Capitalism and mainstream economics simply cannot deal with these problems. Mainstream economics largely ignore [them],” Grantham says.
“We deforest the land, we degrade our soils, we pollute and overuse our water and we treat air like an open sewer, and we do it all off the balance sheet,” he adds.

By Fred Imbert         June 13, 2018

Getty Images

Jeremy Grantham, the longtime investor famous for calling the last two major bubbles in the market, is urging capitalists and “mainstream economists” to recognize the looming threat of climate change.

“Capitalism and mainstream economics simply cannot deal with these problems. Mainstream economics largely ignore [them],” Grantham, who co-founded GMO in 1977, said Tuesday in an impassioned speech at the Morningstar Investment Conference in Chicago. “We deforest the land, we degrade our soils, we pollute and overuse our water and we treat air like an open sewer, and we do it all off the balance sheet.”

This negligence is due in large part to how short-sighted corporations can be, Grantham said. “Anything that happens to a corporation over 25 years out doesn’t exist for them, therefore, as I like to say, grandchildren have no value” to them, he said.

        Getty Images

2016 is likely to have been the hottest year since global temperatures were recorded in the 19th century.

Grantham has been outspoken about his concerns over climate change for years. In 1997, he started the Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment, which gives money to entities that look to protect the environment. Grantham’s company also launched the GMO Climate Change fund last year, which invests in wind and solar companies.

Throughout his presentation, Grantham cited a slew of data showing how climate change is impacting soil, grains, temperature as well as general human health. Those numbers, coupled with Grantham’s speech delivery, scared a lot of people in attendance at the conference.

Grantham also pointed out that many of the problems with how capitalists deal with climate change stem from the very nature of corporations. “A corporation’s responsibility is to maximize profit, not to spend money and figure out how to save the planet,” he said.

But Grantham added: “We’re racing to protect much more than our portfolios. … We’re racing to protect our grandchildren and our species, so get to it.”

Grantham correctly called the bursting of the dotcom bubble in 2000 as well as the sharp market downturn in 2008. These calls helped solidify his reputation in the investment world as a legendary investor. However, Grantham’s GMO has taken massive hits in recent years. The firm’s assets under management have dropped to $71 billion in March from about $124 billion in June 2014 following big bets on emerging markets.

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Republicans propose penalties for states that oppose offshore drilling

The Hill

Republicans propose penalties for states that oppose offshore drilling

By Luis Sanchez       June 13, 2018

© Getty

House Republicans unveiled a draft proposal this week that would place fines on states that block offshore gas and oil drilling.

The Republican draft proposal, first reported by The Washington Post, will be discussed at the Natural Resources Committee on Thursday.

It would allow states to disapprove of offshore drilling for gas and oil in half of its lease blocks without facing any penalties.

However, states with proposed lease sales that disapprove of drilling in more than 50 percent of the blocks would have to pay a fee equal to at least one-tenth the estimated revenue the government would have made if it had leased the blocks.

The proposal also sets up a revenue-sharing scheme for states that allow drilling.

The move would help pressure local politicians to fall in line with President Trump’s plan to increase offshore leasing.

Earlier this year, Trump called for offshore drilling in nearly all U.S. coastal waters, negating a drilling ban former-President Obama imposed near the end of his term.

Many Democrats and some Republicans in coastal areas have resisted Trump’s plan, and some have pledged to keep the federal government from allowing offshore leasing in their states.

The pushback led Trump’s interior secretary, Ryan Zinke to tell Congress he would scale back Trump’s plan.

Democrats are opposed to the proposal, arguing it could cost states millions or billions in fees if they choose to oppose drilling.

Republicans on the committee have said that the proposal could still be changed, the Post reported.

Democrats Score Special Election Upset In Wisconsin District Trump Won Big

HuffPost

Democrats Score Special Election Upset In Wisconsin District Trump Won Big

Amanda Terkel, HuffPost         June 13, 2018 

Wisconsin Democrats scored a major upset victory Tuesday night, winning a state Senate seat in a district that went for Donald Trump by double digits in 2016.

Caleb Frostman defeated state Rep. Andre Jacque (R) for the open seat in District 1 that was previously held by state Sen. Frank Lasee (R), who resigned to take a job in Gov. Scott Walker’s administration. Frostman will be on the ballot again in November for the regular election.

Republicans held on to a state Assembly seat in District 42 that also held a special election Tuesday.

Although Frostman’s term is short, his win is a huge victory for the Democratic Party. Not only was the seat held by a Republican, but Trump defeated Democratic rival Hillary Clinton there by 17 points in the 2016 presidential election. Trump also won the state of Wisconsin overall.

“Tonight is a good night for Wisconsin Democrats,” said state party chair Martha Laning. “We continued a winning streak by flipping a red seat blue and electing Caleb Frostman to the state Senate, a 21-point swing from Trump’s 2016 performance.”

Frostman’s win is especially sweet for Democrats because Walker tried to prevent Tuesday’s contests from taking place to begin with. Both the vacancies were created when Walker tapped the incumbents to join his administration in December.

State law requires the governor to call special elections for vacancies that take place before May in an election year, but Walker had refused to do so.  He planned to keep them vacant until the regular elections in November. The National Democratic Redistricting Committee, a group led by former Attorney General Eric Holder, sued Walker ― and won.

Walker reluctantly called these special elections in March, knowing full well that Democrats had a real shot at flipping the seats.

In January, Democrat Patty Schachtner also had a surprise victory in a state Senate special election, succeeding in another district that had been held by Republicans and went to Trump by 17 points. At the time, Walker called the results a “wake-up call” for Republicans that there was a potential blue wave of Democratic wins coming in November.

“Scott Walker and his Republican allies gerrymandered this district for their own partisan benefit,” said Holder on Tuesday night, “but the citizens of Wisconsin are clearly speaking out this year to demand a state government that better represents their values.”

Democrats have flipped 43 state legislative seats from red to blue since Trump became president. Republicans have flipped seven from blue to red.

Related:

Tuesday’s special elections in Wisconsin: What you need to know

Green Bay Press Gazette

Tuesday’s special elections in Wisconsin: What you need to know

Patrick Marley, Milwaukee     June 11, 2018

       (Photo: Craig Gilbert / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

MADISON – Wisconsin will hold two closely watched special elections  Tuesday, the latest test of whether a “blue wave” could be coming this fall.

Why are the elections being held?

Tuesday’s elections will fill the seats of former Sen. Frank Lasse (R-De Pere) and former Rep. Keith Ripp (R-Lodi), who stepped down in December to take jobs in Gov. Scott Walker’s administration.

Walker didn’t call special elections at the time. Voters in those districts — with the help of a group run by former Obama Attorney General Eric Holder — sued and courts ruled Walker had to call the special election.

Who’s running?

In Senate District 1, Republican Rep Andre Jacque of De Pere faces Democrat Caleb Frostman, the former head of the Door County Economic Development Corp. The district includes all of Door and Kewaunee counties and parts of Brown, Manitowoc, Calumet and Outagamie counties.

In Assembly District 42, Republican Jon Plumer, a Lodi Town Board member and owner of karate schools, is running against Democrat Ann Groves Lloyd, a Lodi alderwoman and University of Wisconsin-Madison academic adviser.

The district is just north of Madison and includes most of Columbia County and parts of Dane, Dodge, Fond du Lac, Green Lake and Marquette counties.

     Caleb Frostman (left), the Democratic candidate in Tuesday’s special election for state Senate, talks to Sturgeon Bay voter Tom Fernandez.  (Photo: Craig Gilbert / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)

Are the races being closely watched? 

Since President Donald Trump took office last year, 25 legislative and congressional seats have flipped from Republican to Democrat, according to Charles Franklin, a pollster and political scientist at Marquette University Law School. Just five have flipped the other way.

Among the seats that went to Democrats was a state Senate seat in western Wisconsin won by Patty Schachtner in January. Walker called that result a “wake-up call” that should warn Republicans they could be in trouble this fall.

Election experts say people shouldn’t draw too many conclusions from one election night, but Tuesday’s results could help guide the narrative about whether a “blue wave” is coming.

Candidates for Assembly District 42 seat meet in Lodi for candidate forum. WisconsinEye

How long will the winners hold the seats?

Not long. The districts are up for election again in November, so both the winners and the losers will have to stay in election mode.

Election observers say Tuesday’s winners will have an edge in the fall election, but no guarantee they will win again. Turnout in the fall is certain to be much higher in the fall than on Tuesday.

What’s at stake?

In one sense, the stakes are low because the seats will immediately be up for election again. In another, they’re high because the Senate seat is an important part of Democrats’ strategy to try to take over the upper house.

Republicans control the Senate 18-14 and Democrats would need to net three seats in the fall to take power in that house.

Republicans have a much firmer, 63-35 margin in the Assembly.