Farm-To-Table May Feel Virtuous, But It’s Food Labor That’s Ripe For Change

NPR

The Salt Opinion-What’s On Your Table

Farm-To-Table May Feel Virtuous, But It’s Food Labor That’s Ripe For Change

Andrea Reusing       July 30, 2017

Mexican farmworkers harvest lettuce in a field outside of Brawley, Calif.

Sandy Huffaker/AFP/Getty Images

Novel and thrilling in earlier days, today’s farm-to-table restaurant menus have scaled new heights of supposed transparency. The specificity can be weirdly opaque, much like an actual menu item that recently made the rounds: Quail Egg Coated in the Ashes of Dried Sheep’s S***. Farm-to-table fatigue is most evident in those of us who cook in farm-to-table restaurants — Even We Are Sick of Us.

In the 15 years since Lantern opened, guests at my Asian-influenced farm-to-table restaurant have only rarely asked why a white girl from New Jersey is cooking fried rice in North Carolina alongside a kitchen crew mostly born in Mexico. The food we cook is openly and inherently inauthentic. But guests are sometimes surprised to learn that every single thing we serve isn’t both local and organic, that our relatively expensive menu yields only slim profit or that we can’t afford a group health plan. Diners occasionally comment that our use of Alaskan salmon or California cilantro has detracted from a truly “authentic” farm-to-table experience.

The ubiquity that makes farm-to-table meaningless also gives it its power. It has come to signify authenticity on almost any level, suggesting practices as complicated as adherence to fair labor standards, supply chain transparency or avoidance of GMOs. As farm-to-table has slipped further away from the food movement and into the realms of foodie-ism and corporate marketing, it is increasingly unhitched from the issues it is so often assumed to address.

Farm-to-table’s sincere glow distracts from how the production and processing of even the most pristine ingredients — from field or dock or slaughterhouse to restaurant or school cafeteria — is nearly always configured to rely on cheap labor. Work very often performed by people who are themselves poor and hungry.

Inequality does not affect our food system — our food system is built on inequality and requires it to function. The components of this inequality —racism, lack of access to capital, exploitation, land loss, nutritional and health disparities in communities of color, to name some — are tightly connected. Our nearly 20-year obsession with food and chefs has neither expanded access to high-quality food nor improved nutrition in low-resource neighborhoods.

Only an honest look at how food gets to the table in the U.S. can begin to unwind these connections.

Food workers, as members of both the largest and lowest-paid U.S. workforce, are in a unique position to lead these conversations. Many of us have already helped incubate policy change on wage equality, organic certification and the humane treatment of animals. But a simpler and maybe even more powerful way we can be catalysts for real change in the food system is to simply tell the stories of who we are.

Take immigration. Our current policy renders much of the U.S. workforce completely invisible. This is more true in the food industry than in any other place in American life. There is a widespread disconnect on the critical role recent immigrants play in producing our food and an underlying empathy gap when it comes to the reality of daily life for these low-wage food workers and their families.

The Salt –Cheap Eats, Cheap Labor: The Hidden Human Costs Of Those Lists

Cheap Eats, Cheap Labor: The Hidden Human Costs Of Those Lists

The Salt –Dinner in Appalachia: Finding Common Ground In Trump Country

Dinner in Appalachia: Finding Common Ground In Trump Country

For example, here in North Carolina, over 150,000 immigrant farm and food-processing workers harvest nearly all the local food we eat and export, but their living and working conditions would shock most Americans.

Our state produces half the sweet potatoes grown in the U.S. — 500,000 tons a year — which are all harvested by hand. A worker here has to dig and haul 2 tons to earn about $50. In meatpacking plants, horrific injuries and deaths resulting from unsafe working conditions are widespread. Farmworkers are exposed to far more pesticides than you or I would get on our spinach. Poverty wages allow ripe strawberries to be sold cheaply enough to be displayed un-refrigerated, piled high in produce section towers. Nearly half of immigrant farm workers and their families in North Carolina are food insecure.

When as chefs we wonder whether a pork chop tastes better if the pig ate corn or nuts but we don’t talk about the people who worked in the slaughterhouse where it was processed, we are creating a kind of theater. We encourage our audience to suspend their disbelief.

The theater our audience sees — abundant grocery stores and farmers markets, absurdly cheap fast food and our farm-to-table dining rooms — resembles what Jean Baudrillard famously called the simulacrum, a kind of heightened parallel world that, like Disneyland, is an artifice with no meaningful connection to the real world.

As chefs, we need to talk more about the economic realities of our kitchens and dining rooms and allow eaters to begin to experience them as we do: imperfect places where abundance and hope exist beside scarcity and compromise. Places that are weakened by the same structural inequality that afflicts every aspect of American life.

Roger Ebert described the capacity of movies to be “like a machine that generates empathy.” With more expansive definitions of authenticity and transparency, restaurants can become empathy machines and diners will get a better understanding of the lives of the people who feed us.

Reusing (@AndreaReusing) is the James Beard award-winning chef at Lantern in Chapel Hill, N.C.

About This Essay

This essay was crafted in response to a summit on racism and difference in food, staged at Rivendell Writers Colony by The Southern Foodways Alliance and Soul Summit.

So long Global Warming and thanks for all of the fish

nextBIGfuture

So long Global Warming and thanks for all of the fish

Brian Wang        July 31, 2017

About 37 percent of Earth’s land area is used for agricultural land. About one-third of this area, or 11 percent of Earth’s total land, is used for crops. The balance, roughly one-fourth of Earth’s land area, is pastureland, which includes cultivated or wild forage crops for animals and open land used for grazing.

There is a proposal to use about 9% of the oceans surface for massive kelp farms. The Ocean surface area is about 36 billion hectares. This would offset all CO2 production and provide 0.5 kg of fish and sea vegetables per person per day for 10 billion people as an “incidental” by-product. Nine per cent of the world’s oceans would be equivalent to about four and a half times the area of Australia.

Fiant of the kelp forest grows faster than tropical bamboo—about 10 to 12 inches in the bay and under ideal conditions, giant kelp can grow an astonishing two feet each day.

In the last decade, seaweed cultivation has been expanding rapidly thanks to growing demand for its use in pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals and antimicrobial products, as well as biotechnological applications. Seaweed today is used in some toothpastes, skin care products and cosmetics, paints and several industrial products, including adhesives, dyes and gels. Seaweed is also used in landscaping or to combat beach erosion.

In 2016, seaweed farms produce more than 25 million metric tons annually. The global value of the crop, US$6.4 billion (2014), exceeds that of the world’s lemons and limes.

A 2016 report from the World Bank estimates that the annual global seaweed production could reach 500 million dry tons by 2050 if the market is able to increase its harvest 14% per year. Hitting that 500 million mark would boost the world’s food supply by 10% from the current level, create 50 million direct jobs in the process and, as a biofuel, replace about 1.5% of the fossil fuels used to run vehicles. The Ocean forest plan would be to accelerate growth of seaweed farming to 25-50% per year growth and reach about 20-60 billion tons per year of production. The world currently produces about 4 billion tons per year of agricultural product.

Ocean Afforestation (aka Ocean Macroalgal Afforestation (OMA)), has the potential to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations through expanding natural populations of macroalgae, which absorb carbon dioxide, then are harvested to produce biomethane and biocarbon dioxidevia anaerobic digestion. The plant nutrients remaining after digestion are recycled to expand the algal forest and increase fish populations. A mass balance has been calculated from known data and applied to produce a life cycle assessment and economic analysis. This analysis shows the potential of Ocean Afforestation to produce 12 billion tons per year of biomethane while storing 19 billion tons of CO2 per year directly from biogas production, plus up to 34 billion tons per year from carbon capture of the biomethane combustion exhaust. These rates are based on macro-algae forests covering 9% of the world’s ocean surface, which could produce sufficient biomethane to replace all of today’s needs in fossil fuel energy, while removing 53 billion tons of CO2 per year from the atmosphere, restoring pre-industrial levels. This amount of biomass could also increase sustainable fish production to potentially provide 200 kg/yr/person for 10 billion people. Additional benefits are reduction in ocean acidification and increased ocean primary productivity and biodiversity.

The proposed model includes the materials and energy to use all three of the following mechanisms to ensure maximum local recycling of the plant nutrients:

  1. a) The dissolved nutrients are distributed evenly through a grid of floating hose. Because this is mostly ammonia at perhaps 800 mg/L of nitrogen, it may have to be distributed only during daylight hours when the algae are providing high dissolved oxygen concentrations so that aerobic microbes can quickly convert the ammonia to nitrate.
    b) The undigested solids from digestion float in “tea-bags” through the forest providing a slow-release fertilizer. When the aerobic bacteria of the ocean surface have extracted most of the remaining plant nutrients, the remaining solids would be released to sink.
    c) The nutrients from dying plants that are not harvested are pumped back up from the water or seafloor beneath the forest.

Store the bio-CO2: Ocean Afforestation concentrates CO2 from air that can be then be stored as pure gas or liquid CO2 with a variety of carbon storage technologies:
a) Deep geologic storage where the CO2 is either a gas, a supercritical fluid, or dissolved in saline aquifers several kilometers below the surface of the earth or the seafloor;
b) Shallow sub-seafloor storage, proposed by House, et al. (2006) where the CO2is either a liquid or a hydrate perhaps 100 meters below the seafloor for a combined depth in excess of 3 kilometers;
c) Solid snow, proposed by Agee, et al. (2012) where the CO2is a frozen solid “landfill” in Antarctica;
d) Artificial geologic seafloor storage where the CO2is hydrate or denser-than-seawater liquid embedded in geo-synthetic and other artificial geologic layers; or
e) Other future technology

Replacing fossil fuels will require so many macroalgal forests that the production of fish sufficient to provide 0.5 kg of fish and sea vegetables per person per day for 10 billion people could be almost an “incidental” by-product. In actuality, seafood production is likely to be a higher fraction of OMA products initially because food is generally a higher unit value than renewable energy. However, food uses can remove nutrients from an OMA ecosystem. We project that this would mean less than 2% of the annual forest nutrient requirement, in the 2050 scenario (OMA over 6% of world oceans) actually leaving the forests in the form of fish and other edible food stocks (based on data from Ramseyer, 2002). We have not included fish and other food products in our calculated energy balance. Potential other products include liquid fuels, agar, carrageenans, algin, etc

Ocean forests project proposed taking five years to get initial demonstration 10,000 hectare forest operating economically in a near-shore sheltered water environment (involving an investment of about $20 million). This forest may be located where there are sufficient existing nutrients that nutrient recycling needs would be minimal and inexpensive.

It could take another ten years (to get many sheltered water 10,000-hectare forests operating. Initial forests may be located where there are sufficient existing nutrients that nutrient recycling needs would be minimal and inexpensive. The sheltered water approach could involve as much as 0.3% of the ocean’s surface (1 million km2). In this case, ‘sheltered water’ may be the entire Mediterranean Sea, the Gulf of California, and other such bodies of water where tropical storms are rare or enclosed, perhaps 4 million km2. Sheltered water can be any depth. Occupying a quarter of the available sheltered water may be a challenge, but all the sheltered water operations will put only a small dent in humanity’s CO2 debts. Open ocean operations are needed.

The reason OMA expansion can be so rapid is that the basic technology involves low-tech components, such as harvesting nets, large geo-synthetic (plastic) bags, and pipes, with the methane feeding into existing natural gas and diesel power plants. Also, many sheltered waters suffer from an over-abundance of anthropomorphic nutrients.

The first open-ocean 10,000-hectare forest could be developed with an investment of perhaps $100 million. But it could take another seven years to get many open-ocean 10,000-hectare forests operating.

What might a kelp farming facility of the future look like? Dr Brian von Hertzen of the Climate Foundation has outlined one vision: a frame structure, most likely composed of a carbon polymer, up to a square kilometer in extent and sunk far enough below the surface (about 25 meters) to avoid being a shipping hazard. Planted with kelp, the frame would be interspersed with containers for shellfish and other kinds of fish as well. There would be no netting, but a kind of free-range aquaculture based on providing habitat to keep fish on location. Robotic removal of encrusting organisms would probably also be part of the facility. The marine permaculture would be designed to clip the bottom of the waves during heavy seas. Below it, a pipe reaching down to 200–500 meters would bring cool, nutrient-rich water to the frame, where it would be reticulated over the growing kelp.

Von Herzen’s objective is to create what he calls “permaculture arrays” – marine permaculture at a scale that will have an impact on the climate by growing kelp and bringing cooler ocean water to the surface. His vision also entails providing habitat for fish, generating food, feedstocks for animals, fertilizer and biofuels. He also hopes to help exploited fish populations rebound and to create jobs. “Given the transformative effect that marine permaculture can have on the ocean, there is much reason for hope that permaculture arrays can play a major part in globally balancing carbon,” he says.

The addition of a floating platform supporting solar panels, facilities such as accommodation (if the farms are not fully automated), refrigeration and processing equipment tethered to the floating framework would enhance the efficiency and viability of the permaculture arrays, as well as a dock for ships carrying produce to market.

Given its phenomenal growth rate, the kelp could be cut on a 90-day rotation basis.

The seaweed could be converted to biochar to produce energy and the char pelletized and discarded overboard. Char, having a mineralized carbon structure, is likely to last well on the seafloor. Likewise, shells and any encrusting organisms could be sunk as a carbon store.

Once at the bottom of the sea three or more kilometers below, it’s likely that raw kelp, and possibly even to some extent biochar, would be utilized as a food source by bottom-dwelling bacteria and larger organisms such as sea cucumbers. Provided that the decomposing material did not float, this would not matter, because once sunk below about one kilometer from the surface, the carbon in these materials would effectively be removed from the atmosphere for at least 1,000 years. If present in large volumes, however, decomposing matter may reduce oxygen levels in the surrounding seawater.

Large volumes of kelp already reach the ocean floor. Storms in the North Atlantic may deliver enormous volumes of kelp – by some estimates as much as 7 gigatons at a time – to the 1.8km-deep ocean floor off the Bahamian Shelf.

Icebreaker sets mark for earliest Northwest Passage transit

Winnipeg Free Press

Icebreaker sets mark for earliest Northwest Passage transit

By: Frank Jordans, The Associated Press    July 29, 2017

NUUK, Greenland – After 24 days at sea and a journey spanning more than 10,000 kilometres (6,214 miles), the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica has set a new record for the earliest transit of the fabled Northwest Passage.

The once-forbidding route through the Arctic, linking the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, has been opening up sooner and for a longer period each summer due to climate change. Sea ice that foiled famous explorers and blocked the passage to all but the hardiest ships has slowly been melting away in one of the most visible effects of man-made global warming.

In this Saturday, July 22, 2017 photo, Canadian Coast Guard Capt. Victor Gronmyr looks out over the ice covering the Victoria Strait as the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica traverses the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

In this Saturday, July 22, 2017 photo, Canadian Coast Guard Capt. Victor Gronmyr looks out over the ice covering the Victoria Strait as the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica traverses the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic Archipelago. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Second officer Juha Tuomi looks out from Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica as it sails into floating sea ice on the Victoria Strait while traversing the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Friday, July 21, 2017. Sea ice plays an important role in the global climate system by cooling the surrounding water and air. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

Second officer Juha Tuomi looks out from Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica as it sails into floating sea ice on the Victoria Strait while traversing the Northwest Passage in the Canadian Arctic Archipelago, Friday, July 21, 2017. Sea ice plays an important role in the global climate system by cooling the surrounding water and air. (AP Photo/David Goldman)

FILE - In this July 16, 2017 file photo, Chief engineer Jukka-Pekka Silander watches from the bow of the the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica as it sails into floating sea ice on the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska while traversing the Arctic's Northwest Passage. After 24 days at sea and a journey spanning more than 10,000 kilometers (6,214 miles), the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica has set a new record for the earliest transit of the fabled Northwest Passage. The once-forbidding route through the Arctic, linking the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, has been opening up sooner and for a longer period each summer due to climate change. Sea ice that foiled famous explorers and blocked the passage to all but the hardiest ships has slowly been melting away in one of the most visible effects of man-made global warming. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

FILE – In this July 16, 2017 file photo, Chief engineer Jukka-Pekka Silander watches from the bow of the the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica as it sails into floating sea ice on the Beaufort Sea off the coast of Alaska while traversing the Arctic’s Northwest Passage. After 24 days at sea and a journey spanning more than 10,000 kilometers (6,214 miles), the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica has set a new record for the earliest transit of the fabled Northwest Passage. The once-forbidding route through the Arctic, linking the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, has been opening up sooner and for a longer period each summer due to climate change. Sea ice that foiled famous explorers and blocked the passage to all but the hardiest ships has slowly been melting away in one of the most visible effects of man-made global warming. (AP Photo/David Goldman, File)

Records kept by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans show that the previous earliest passage of the season happened in 2008, when the Canadian Coast Guard ship Louis L. St-Laurent left St. John’s in Newfoundland on July 5 and arrived in the Beaufort Sea off Point Barrow on July 30.

The Nordica, with a team of researchers and Associated Press journalists on board, completed a longer transit in less time — albeit in the opposite direction — setting off from Vancouver on July 5 and reaching Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, on July 29.

While the icebreaker encountered Chinese cargo vessels, Alaskan fishing boats and a German cruise ship in the Pacific, upon entering the Canadian Archipelago, the Nordica traveled alone. Radar indicated the presence of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Sherman near Point Barrow; along the coast an occasional collection of houses revealed evidence of human settlement in the far north.

For the most part, the ship’s only companions were Arctic sea birds, seals and the occasional whale, until two-thirds of the way through the voyage, as Nordica was plowing through sea ice in Victoria Strait, a crew member sighted a polar bear.

These animals have come to symbolize the threat posed to Arctic wildlife by climate change because the sea ice they depend on for hunting is disappearing a bit more each year. Scientists predict the Northwest Passage will be largely ice free in the summer by 2050 if current levels of warming continue.

For now, the passage remains a challenge for conventional ships and efforts are being made to prevent frozen waterways that the local Inuit population depends on for travel from being opened up. Yet tourism and other forms of economic development are already under way.

As Nordica sailed through Baffin Bay, the far corner of the North Atlantic that separates Canada and Greenland, it passed cargo ships lining up in the distance. They were preparing to pick up iron ore from a mine on Baffin Island that’s expected to operate for decades to come.

On July 26, 1845, an expedition to find the Northwest Passage led by British explorer John Franklin was last sighted off Baffin Island. The expedition never made it. Trapped by sea ice, Franklin and his men perished from cold, illness and starvation. Their two ships were found in 2014 and 2016, not far from where Nordica sighted its first polar bear.

Follow the team of AP journalists who traveled through the Arctic Circle’s fabled Northwest Passage. You can find their posts here: https://www.apnews.com/tag/NewArctic

You can comment on most stories on winnipegfreepress.com. You can also agree or disagree with other comments. All you need to do is be a Winnipeg Free Press print or e-edition subscriber to join the conversation and give your feedback.

Finnish Icebreaker Sets Record for Earliest Northwest Passage Crossing

NBC News

Finnish Icebreaker Sets Record for Earliest Northwest Passage Crossing

NUUK, Greenland — After 24 days at sea and a journey spanning more than 6,214 miles, the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica has set a new record for the earliest transit of the fabled Northwest Passage.

The once-forbidding route through the Arctic, linking the Pacific and the Atlantic oceans, has been opening up sooner and for a longer period each summer due to climate change. Sea ice that foiled famous explorers and blocked the passage to all but the hardiest ships has slowly been melting away in one of the most visible effects of man-made global warming.

Records kept by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans show that the previous earliest passage of the season happened in 2008, when the Canadian Coast Guard ship Louis L. St-Laurent left St. John’s in Newfoundland on July 5 and arrived in the Beaufort Sea off Point Barrow on July 30.

Image: David Kullualik looks over the sea ice of Peel Sound.

David Kullualik looks over the sea ice of Peel Sound. David Goldman / AP

The Nordica, with a team of researchers and Associated Press journalists on board, completed a longer transit in less time — albeit in the opposite direction — setting off from Vancouver on July 5 and reaching Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, on July 29.

While the icebreaker encountered Chinese cargo vessels, Alaskan fishing boats and a German cruise ship in the Pacific, upon entering the Canadian Archipelago, the Nordica traveled alone. Radar indicated the presence of the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Sherman near Point Barrow; along the coast an occasional collection of houses revealed evidence of human settlement in the far north.

For the most part, the ship’s only companions were Arctic sea birds, seals and the occasional whale, until two-thirds of the way through the voyage, as Nordica was plowing through sea ice in Victoria Strait, a crew member sighted a polar bear.

These animals have come to symbolize the threat posed to Arctic wildlife by climate change because the sea ice they depend on for hunting is disappearing a bit more each year. Scientists predict the Northwest Passage will be largely ice free in the summer by 2050 if current levels of warming continue.

For now, the passage remains a challenge for conventional ships and efforts are being made to prevent frozen waterways that the local Inuit population depends on for travel from being opened up. Yet tourism and other forms of economic development are already under way.

As Nordica sailed through Baffin Bay, the far corner of the North Atlantic that separates Canada and Greenland, it passed cargo ships lining up in the distance. They were preparing to pick up iron ore from a mine on Baffin Island that’s expected to operate for decades to come.

Image: Broken sea ice emerges from under the hull of the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica.

Broken sea ice emerges from under the hull of the Finnish icebreaker MSV Nordica. David Goldman / AP

On July 26, 1845, an expedition to find the Northwest Passage led by British explorer John Franklin was last sighted off Baffin Island. The expedition never made it. Trapped by sea ice, Franklin and his men perished from cold, illness and starvation. Their two ships were found in 2014 and 2016, not far from where Nordica sighted its first polar bear.

Trump threatens insurer payments and health care enjoyed by Congress

STAT

Trump threatens insurer payments and health care enjoyed by Congress

Lev Facher, STAT News      July 29, 2017

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Saturday indicated he will make good on a months-old threat to destabilize the health insurance market if Senate Republicans cannot repeal and replace major elements of the Affordable Care Act.

Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump….If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!    July 29, 2017

The first part of the ultimatum likely refers to cost-sharing reduction payments made by the federal government to insurers, which in turn offer discounted plans for many low- or middle-income Americans buying plans through ACA marketplaces.

The second portion, while far narrower in scope, is significant in that it highlights an additional tool at the president’s disposal for acting unilaterally on health policy. Though ACA repeal has been in the spotlight throughout 2017, other rumblings regarding subsidies specific to Congress have been rare.

In January, Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fl.) introduced a bill that would end an exemption enabling members of Congress and Capitol Hill staff to obtain employer contributions from the government to pay for plans on D.C.’s small-business exchange, which the federal Office of Personnel Management in 2013 issued guidance to allow.

Read more: Get ready for the next big health care fight. This one’s all about kids

“By blowing the whistle on this special deal concocted by OPM, we will make members of Congress better understand the burdens of ObamaCare, thereby incentivizing members to get to work on a good repeal and replace plan,” DeSantis wrote then in a statement.

Heather Higgins, CEO of the conservative-leaning advocacy group Independent Women’s Voice, wrote last week in a Wall Street Journal op-ed: “Congress is essentially unaffected by the high costs of the ObamaCare exchanges because of a special exemption crafted under the Obama administration.” Some subsidies obtained via D.C.’s small-business exchange, the op-ed claimed, were worth as much as $12,000 annually.

While Trump’s meaning was not entirely clear, it is possible he could direct OPM to rescind the ruling enabling the exemption, as a coalition of right-wing groups encouraged him to do in a July 21st letter.

The president’s threat regarding cost-sharing reduction payments, however, is more broadly impactful, more familiar, and more widely understood.

It also echoes a warning made by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in the early hours of Friday, just after his chamber’s efforts to pass a narrow compromise bill fell one vote short.

“I bet I’m pretty safe in saying, for most of the people on this side of the aisle, that bailing out insurance companies — bailing out insurance companies with no thought of any kind of reform — is not something I want to be part of,” McConnell said in his speech on the Senate floor.

Trump has made the threat before, indicating he believed ending the payments would leave Democrats with no choice but to negotiate with Republicans on a broader repeal bill. But it takes on added significance in light of GOP senators’ setback.

Insurers have repeatedly indicated that ending CSR payments would throw markets into turmoil and even cause the type of “death spiral” Republicans in Congress have long warned against.

The Congressional Budget Office has estimated the payments’ value at $7 billion in 2017, $10 billion in 2018, and $11 billion in 2019.

The Kaiser Family Foundation projects that without CSR payments, the cost of “silver” insurance plans in Medicaid expansion states would increase by 15 percent, and in non-expansion states by 21 percent.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) responded to Trump quickly via the same medium on Saturday:

Chuck Schumer @SenSchumer… If @POTUS  refuses to make CSR payments, every expert agrees that premiums will go up & #healthcare will be more expensive for millions. July 29, 2017

Trump Supporters Furious That They Still Have Health Care

The New Yorker

Satire from The Borowitz Report

Trump Supporters Furious That They Still Have Health Care

By Andy Borowitz        July 28, 2017

Photograph by Sean Rayford / Getty

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—With a fury that could spell political trouble for Republicans in the midterm elections, Trump voters across the country on Friday expressed their outrage and anger that they still have health coverage.

“I went to bed Thursday night and slept like a baby, assuming that when I woke up I would have zero health insurance,” Carol Foyler, a Trump voter, said. “Instead, this nightmare.”

Harland Dorrinson, who voted for Trump “because he promised that he would take my health care away from me on Day 1,” said that he was “very upset” that he will still receive that benefit.

“I woke up this morning, and my family and I could still see a doctor,” he said. “This is a betrayal.”

Many Trump supporters said that congressional Republicans “gave up too soon” in their efforts to deprive ordinary Americans like them of their health care.

“They should not take August off,” Calvin Denoit, a Trump supporter, said. “They should stay in Washington and keep working until I totally lose my coverage.”

For Trump voters like Benoit, the abject disappointment of continuing to have health care raises fears about which other campaign promises might soon be broken.

“Now I don’t know what to believe,” he said. “Are we still going to get to pay billions of dollars in taxes for that wall?”

Andy Borowitz is the New York Times best-selling author of “The 50 Funniest American Writers,” and a comedian who has written for The New Yorker since 1998. He writes the Borowitz Report, a satirical column on the news, for newyorker.com.

Shell preparing for world economy that shifts away from oil

Washington Post Business

Shell preparing for world economy that shifts away from oil

FILE – This Wednesday, Jan. 20, 2016, photo shows the Shell logo at a petrol station in London. Royal Dutch Shell is planning for the day when demand for oil starts fading as major economies move away from oil and increasingly turn to electric-powered cars. (Kirsty Wigglesworth, File/Associated Press)

The Associated Press    By Danica Kirka       July 28, 2017

LONDON — Royal Dutch Shell is planning for the day when demand for oil starts fading as major economies move away from oil and increasingly turn to electric-powered cars, Chief Executive Ben van Beurden said Thursday.

Van Beurden welcomed recent proposals to phase out passenger vehicles powered by fossil fuels in Britain and France, saying they are needed to combat global warming. Shell is looking at “very aggressive scenarios” as it makes plans to remain competitive in a world that gets more of its energy from renewable sources and less from crude oil, or “liquids,” he said.

“The most aggressive scenario – much more aggressive than what we are seeing at the moment, by the way – with maximum policy effect, with maximum innovation effect, can see us peaking in liquids consumption somewhere in the early thirties,” he said as Shell reported second-quarter earnings. “If there are a lot of biofuels in the mix, that may mean that oil will peak in the late twenties, but then everything has to work up.”

Van Beurden’s comments come amid increased focus on the future of the industry after the Paris climate agreement saw governments commit to tougher action on emissions and shareholders push for more long-term plans.

Britain this week pledged to ban the sale of new cars and vans using diesel and gasoline starting in 2040 as part of a sweeping plan to tackle air pollution. France announced a similar initiative earlier this month.

Car makers are also moving in this direction. Volvo says that by 2019 all of its cars will be powered by electricity or hybrid engines.

“It’s not a surprise that the international super-majors are starting to accept a future with the question of just how much oil and gas is needed,” said David Elmes, an energy industry expert at Warwick Business School. “They realize that is now in their planning horizons and therefore needs to be discussed with shareholders because it is influencing the decisions today, and one might argue that has been prompted by shareholder activism.”

Shell has already begun to respond to changing energy demand by increasing its focus on natural gas, van Beurden said. But the company also needs to get involved in electricity and renewable energy and expand its petrochemicals business, he said.

Van Beurden also stressed that while developed nations are moving away from gasoline- and diesel-powered passenger vehicles, the world will continue to depend on these fuels for many years.

Developing nations don’t yet have the money or electricity networks needed to shift away from fossil fuels, and aviation, shipping and trucking can’t easily shift to non-hydrocarbon energy sources, he said.

“As far as oil and gas are concerned, and certainly as far as oil is concerned, you have to bear in mind that if we have a peak and then go into decline, this doesn’t mean that it is game over straight away,” van Beurden said.

Shell’s discussion of the future came as it said second-quarter earnings more than tripled due to cost cuts and recovering oil prices.

The Anglo-Dutch energy giant said profit adjusted for changes in the value of inventories and excluding one-time items rose to $3.60 billion from $1.05 billion in the same period last year. Net income rose 31 percent to $1.55 billion.

The earnings reflect efforts to restructure the business to cope with lower oil prices and the purchase of natural gas producer BG Group. Shell’s oil price averaged $45.62 a barrel for the quarter, up 16 percent from a year earlier. Prices were above $100 a barrel as recently as 2014.

“The external price environment and energy sector developments mean we will remain very disciplined, with an absolute focus on the four levers within our control, namely capital efficiency, costs, new project delivery, and divestments,” van Beurden said.

Energy Transfer Partners LP Pipeline Problems Are Getting Worse

Motley Fool

Energy Transfer Partners LP Pipeline Problems Are Getting Worse

Two of the pipeline builder’s largest projects hit roadblocks this week, which could spell more trouble down the road.

Matthew DiLallo        July 26, 2017  

Energy Transfer Partners‘ (NYSE:ETP) has had its share of difficulties over the past year. The headliner was the problems it faced in building the Dakota Access Pipeline, which endured several months of setbacks due to protests that caused a delay in getting a key permit. While that project finally entered service last month, the issues with that pipeline haven’t gone away.

Unfortunately, those nagging issues aren’t the only problems facing the company. Just this week, two more of its pipeline construction projects came to a halt. Not only could these new roadblocks delay the in-service date of these key projects, which would have an adverse impact on its cash flow as well as the operations of its customers, but it would further tarnish the company’s already sullied reputation. That could haunt Energy Transfer in the future unless it cleans up its act.

Pipeline construction worker waling past a blue sky.Image source: Getty Images.

Rover’s problems spread to West Virginia

The largest project Energy Transfer currently has under construction is the $4.2 billion Rover Pipeline that would move natural gas from the Marcellus and Utica shale plays of West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Ohio to market centers in the Michigan and Ontario. The company initially expected an in-service date of the first phase in July, with full service anticipated by November.

That said, the company hit a roadblock this spring after 2 million gallons of drilling fluids used in horizontal drilling underneath roads and waterways spilled into wetlands in Ohio. Worse yet, regulators found that the fluids didn’t just contain the clay and water mixture that Energy Transfer disclosed, but also had trace amounts of diesel. Because of that, the company hasn’t been able to complete any new directional drilling on the project, which has delayed the in-service date of the first phase until late summer.

Meanwhile, this past week environmental regulators in West Virginia ordered the company to stop work on certain sections of the pipeline after finding that it violated state rules and a water pollution permit. As a result, the company must cease work on these sections in the state until it regains compliance with all the terms and conditions of its permits and local laws.

Mariner East 2 hits a road block

Another major project for the company is the $2.5 billion Mariner East 2 natural gas liquids (NGL) pipeline, which would move NGLs from the Marcellus and Utica to an export terminal near Philadelphia. However, this project has also come under intense opposition and scrutiny. Its latest setback came this past week when a judge in Pennsylvania halted construction of the pipeline in a town in the southwestern part of the state due to a dispute over the location of a valve and other equipment, which the town says is in violation of a 2015 agreement.

That said, this isn’t the first problem with this construction project. The company already had to halt directional drilling due to another inadvertent release of drilling fluids in the area. Further, the company was recently fined by Pennsylvania’s Department of Environmental Protection for a violation during construction that affected wetlands in another part of the state.

A pipeline under construction.Image source: Getty Images.

Customers are counting on these projects

These delays represent more setbacks for investors given that Energy Transfer Partners is counting on these projects to fuel its distribution growth plans. That said, it’s not just Energy Transfer’s investors that will feel the impact if these projects don’t start service as expected because many of its customers are counting them to drive future growth. Antero Resources (NYSE:AR), for example, is an anchor shipper on the Rover Pipeline, which it’s counting on to help it deliver on its long-term production targets to increase its gas output by 20% to 22% through 2020. Without the project, there might not be enough regional pipeline capacity, which could force Antero to scale back its growth plans. Meanwhile, Antero Resources is also an anchor shipper on Mariner East 2, which the company expects will improve the prices it realizes for its NGL production because it will have the ability to export them to international markets.

Southwestern Energy (NYSE:SWN) and Eclipse Resources (NYSE:ECR) are also counting on Energy Transfer’s projects entering service. In Southwestern Energy’s case, it’s rapidly ramping up production in Southwest Appalachia due to its view that new pipeline projects like Rover will reduce the discount its gas fetches compared to market rates from $0.67 in 2017 to $0.21 by 2019. Meanwhile, Eclipse Resources is planning to increase its output by a 25% compound annual rate in the coming years due in part to the greater market access it sees in the forecast once Rover enters service.

The black eye to its reputation might start to hurt

Energy Transfer Partners has taken quite a hit to its reputation over the past year due to the issues it has had with constructing its major pipeline projects. Because of that, it could become harder for the company to move forward with new projects because customers might be reluctant to sign up for capacity given its prior issues. That could give competitors the upper hand in winning new projects, which might impact the company’s ability to grow in the coming years. That dimming growth outlook gives investors less incentive to stick with the company over the long term unless it can clean up its act.

Matt DiLallo has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned.

Bosses want capitalism for themselves and feudalism for their workers

The Washington Post-Wonkblog

Bosses want capitalism for themselves and feudalism for their workers

By Matt O’Brien         July 26, 2017

(HBO)

If some employers had their way, you would have to pledge eternal fealty to them just to get a paycheck.

You would bend the knee, bow your head, and swear to serve them faithfully, now and forever, even if someone else tried to hire you away for more money. And in return for this loyalty, you of course would get none. Your company could fire you whenever it wanted and wouldn’t have to take care of you when you got old. If you were really lucky, it might, just might, give you a small 401(k) match. In other words, it’d be capitalism for bosses, and feudalism for workers.

Now, as much as this might sound like a caricature, it’s actually the way things are in Idaho. Well, except maybe for the genuflecting. As the New York Time’s Conor Dougherty reports, the state’s non-compete laws are so strict that people can’t leave their jobs for a new one unless they can show that it wouldn’t “adversely affect” their current employer. That’s an impossible standard that would leave workers — and, more to the point, their wages — entirely at the mercy of their bosses.

This is not, to put it mildly, the way things are supposed to work. When unemployment is as low as it is now, companies are supposed to have to fight over workers by paying them more. If there’s one thing chief executives excel at, though, it’s cutting every cost other than their own bonuses. They’ve figured out that it’s a lot cheaper to simply tell their employees that they’re not allowed to leave than it is to pay them enough that they wouldn’t want to leave in the first place. Which is to say that Idaho isn’t the only state going medieval on workers. Many of them are. Non-competes, which started off as a way to stop a company’s top executives from revealing legitimate trade secrets to rivals, have turned into a tool for suppressing wages that now cover 14 percent of all people making $40,000 or less, according to the U.S. Treasury Department.

There’s no reason that sandwich shop makers or doggy day-care workers or summer camp counselors should have to sign non-compete agreements like some of them have recently. No reason other than that businesses know they can get away with it. Jobs were so scarce for so long in the aftermath of the Great Recession that companies realized they could put almost any condition on them and still find plenty of people willing — no, desperate — to take them. To the point that even people who were trying to get jobs at Jimmy John’s felt like they had to promise that they wouldn’t take any of the secrets they were about to learn about putting slices of meat in between pieces of bread to go work for, say, Subway instead.

It’s a reminder that economics isn’t just about supply and demand. It’s also about who has the power to make demands. Which actually has more to do with government policies than market forces. Things like how high the minimum wage is, how easy it is to form a union, and, yes, how tough non-compete laws are all affect the balance of power between capital and labor independent of the unemployment rate. So does the welfare state itself. Indeed, businesses have historically been opposed to Social Security, Medicare and, more recently, Obamacare not only because those programs cost them money, but also control over their workers. When the government helps people be able to afford to retire, companies can’t afford to hire quite as many of them — not if they want to maintain their profit margins. That’s because workers have more bargaining power when there aren’t as many of them actually looking for, well, work.

The same kind of logic, by the way, applies to stimulus spending. As economist Michal Kalecki argued back in 1943, a government that hires unemployed people is a government that doesn’t have to give business what it wants to get them to hire unemployed people. The more the government does, then, the less sway businesses have over the economy and everyone in it.

The important thing to understand is that capitalists don’t believe in capitalism. They believe in profits. There’s a difference. Capitalism is about free competition, while profitability, taken to the extreme, is about the lack of it. After all, the best way to make money is to drive everyone else out of business, and to then force your workers to accept subsistence-level wages. It’s the contradiction at the heart of capitalism, which, if it weren’t for the fact that governments can intervene to save the system from itself, could very well lead to revolution.

That’s what happens when you turn workers into vassals.

Matt O’Brien is a reporter for Wonkblog covering economic affairs. He was previously a senior associate editor at The Atlantic.

Made in the USA, Baby

Esquire

Made in the USA, Baby

Scott Walker, Foxconn, what could go wrong?

By Charles P. Pierce       July 27, 2017

(Permanent Musical Accompaniment To This Post)

Being our semi-regular weekly survey of what’s goin’ down in the several states where, as we know, the real work of governmentin’ gets done, and where you look for work and money and you walk a ragged mile.

The big news of the week comes to us from Wisconsin, where Scott Walker, the goggle-eyed homunculus hired by Koch Industries to manage that particular Midwest subsidiary, is all puffed up because Foxconn has decided to make liquid crystal screens in his state. Not only that, but the president* and Vice President Galatians are puffed up, too. From the Journal Sentinel:

“This is a great day for American workers and manufacturers and everyone who believes in the concept and the label ‘Made in the USA,’ ” said an ebullient President Donald Trump at the White House announcement. As Republicans in Washington struggle to repeal Obamacare and advance bills on tax cuts and infrastructure, Trump seized on the announcement as a win in a key swing state, crowing that the deal wouldn’t have been done “if I didn’t get elected.” The agreement represents an opportunity as well as a risk for Wisconsin — state lawmakers must now consider a subsidy package nearly 50 times bigger than the state’s previous record.”

It will surprise approximately nobody that the plant likely will be built on the home turf of obvious anagram Reince Priebus and Speaker Paul Ryan, the famous zombie-eyed granny starver. And then, ah, yes. The “incentives.” Always interesting, always reasonable, at the start of the deal.

“At $3 billion for 13,000 jobs, the Wisconsin deal would cost $231,000 per job. The subsidies would total more than the combined yearly state funding used to operate the University of Wisconsin System and the state’s prison system. The company would have to meet certain job and investment targets up front to get the money, which would include up to $1.5 billion in state income tax credits for jobs created, up to $1.35 billion in credits for capital investment and up to $150 million in sales tax exemptions on construction materials. In addition, like other manufacturers in Wisconsin, Foxconn would pay no corporate taxes on profits from sales on products made here. The incentives would cost the state about $200 million a year, but Foxconn’s payroll in Wisconsin could reach $700 million a year, Walker’s office said.”

This next part sounds creepy and more than a little Hazzard Countyish.

The factory project would involve a virtual village, with housing, stores and service businesses spread over at least 1,000 acres, according to interviews. That acreage, a 1.5 square-mile area the size of Shorewood, could be assembled from parcels that initially aren’t contiguous, the source said.

If Wisconsin is very lucky, Foxconn will not run a de facto slave-labor camp the way it does in China. An epidemic of worker suicides in, say, Kenosha would not be good for anyone. From The Guardian:

“In 2010, Longhua assembly-line workers began killing themselves. Worker after worker threw themselves off the towering dorm buildings, sometimes in broad daylight, in tragic displays of desperation – and in protest at the work conditions inside. There were 18 reported suicide attempts that year alone and 14 confirmed deaths. Twenty more workers were talked down by Foxconn officials… The corporate response spurred further unease: Foxconn CEO, Terry Gou, had large nets installed outside many of the buildings to catch falling bodies. The company hired counsellors and workers were made to sign pledges stating they would not attempt to kill themselves.”

Of course, thanks to Walker, Wisconsin is a right to work state now, so who knows? Obviously, this is a massive trust-but-verify gamble by the state government, and I suspect there will be more trusting than verifying involved as the project goes forward. Walker has promised to call a special session of the state legislature to debate the deal. Of course, this probably depends on whether or not he and his legislature ever get their acts together to produce a budget.

Sliding on down to Texas, where there’s an actual special session of the state legislature happening, we find that body still functioning as a petri dish for very contagious and really bad ideas, and doing it at light speed. From the good folk at The Texas Tribune:

“In abortion cases where complications arise, reporting to the state is already required. Under state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione’s House Bill 13, those requirements would get more strict: Physicians would have to submit reports to the state health commission within three days that include detailed information like the patient’s year of birth, race, marital status, state and county of residence, and the date of her last menstrual cycle. Physicians and facilities that fail to comply with the reporting requirements would face a $500 fine for each day in violation. “What I’m trying to do with this law is validate and verify data,” said Capriglione, R-Southlake.”

Of course, why wouldn’t anyone buy that?

Democrats fought the measure, which reproductive rights groups say would violate the privacy rights of doctors and patients, and is an attempt to intimidate abortion providers. It was approved on a 97-46 vote.

And it wouldn’t be a petri dish for very contagious and really bad ideas if bathrooms weren’t involved. From The Waco Tribune-Herald:

“If anything, tensions are running even hotter. Now at stake for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott, who faces re-election in 2018 and has gone against the tide of GOP governors who have shied from following the lead of North Carolina, is whether his party will deliver after ordering them to finish the job in a special legislative session that ends in August. Big business and police —two usually important groups to Texas Republicans — have urged Abbott to drop it. Just as the bill came to floor inside the Senate, police chiefs and commanders from Texas’ largest cities stood outside on the Capitol steps and railed against the effort as a waste of time.”

You have to wonder, don’t you, Governor Greg Abbott? If the police chiefs in Texas think this is a waste of time, exactly how far off the beam has your legislature fallen?

And we conclude, as is our custom, in the great state of Oklahoma, where Blog Official Abandoned Drive-In Theater Monitor Friedman of the Plains brings us yet another tale of stuff being where stuff is not supposed to be. From readfrontier.org:

A little more than half — 52 percent — of the oil estimated by the Corporation Commission to have been released during that time was recovered by the operator or a remediation company, and about two-thirds of the wastewater released was recovered, according to the data. The data reflects releases of oil and wastewater at locations such as well sites and storage tanks, and does not include spills from interstate pipelines, which are regulated by the U.S. Department of Transportation. In many cases, the numbers are only estimates of how much oil or wastewater was spilled, said Matt Skinner, spokesman for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, and in some cases an estimated amount spilled may not have been provided or noted in the data field by the inspector. “There’s no way of knowing how much higher it would be. Chances are, (actual total amounts) would be to the high side, rather than the low side, but there’s no way of knowing,” Skinner said. “It can be very difficult to gauge unless the operator has the records where we can get a better idea.”

A business-friendly state economy remains full of surprises. Trust, but verify.

This is your democracy, America. Cherish it.

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