More signs indicate Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be unraveling

CBS News

More signs indicate Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be unraveling

Holly Williams – October 29, 2022

There are more and more signs that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be unraveling.

One of the most glaring setbacks in its war is its recent big call-up of more troops — a plan that doesn’t appear to be working. Russia’s mobilization has caused anger at home, forcing the old and inexperienced into uniform, with claims they’re short of even basic equipment. The call-up followed weeks of embarrassing setbacks for Russian forces, as Ukraine has retaken swaths of its territory. And in the Russian-occupied city of Kherson, officials appointed by Moscow have evacuated civilians ahead of another expected Ukrainian counter-offensive.

Artillerymen of Ukraine's Armed Forces destroy the Russian invaders with the help of the German 155-mm FH70 howitzer, Zaporizhzhia Region, southeastern Ukraine. Oct. 27, 2022.  / Credit: Sipa via AP Images
Artillerymen of Ukraine’s Armed Forces destroy the Russian invaders with the help of the German 155-mm FH70 howitzer, Zaporizhzhia Region, southeastern Ukraine. Oct. 27, 2022. / Credit: Sipa via AP Images

On Russian state TV, at times the tone seems close to despair. Russia miscalculated its strength and for eight straight months can’t win in its war on Ukraine, said one commentator. Perhaps another sign of Russian desperation is its new tactic: targeting the Ukrainian power grid, which has led to blackouts in Ukraine — but no collapse in morale. As Russia’s nuclear forces started annual drills this week, President Vladimir Putin repeated his government’s allegation that Ukraine could detonate a radioactive device — a so-called “dirty bomb.” Some fear Russia is planning a false-flag operation, staging an incident and blaming Ukraine, perhaps as a pretext for using a nuclear weapon. “I’m not guaranteeing you that it’s a false flag operation yet, don’t know,” said President Joe Biden. “But it would be a serious, serious mistake.” Ukraine’s defense minister told CBS News Russia is exhausted, and trying to force Ukraine and the West to negotiate. In a bizarre speech this week, Putin railed against the West, including gay pride parades and so-called cancel culture. But he also said that it would make no sense for Russia to use a nuclear weapon. Biden’s response to that was: If he has no intention, why does he keep talking about it?

Barack Obama Mercilessly Mocks Herschel Walker With A ‘Thought Experiment’

HuffPost

Barack Obama Mercilessly Mocks Herschel Walker With A ‘Thought Experiment’

Lee Moran – October 29, 2022

Former President Barack Obama joked about Herschel Walker, the GOP nominee for a U.S. Senate seat in Georgia, on Friday with a “thought experiment” that highlighted the Republican candidate’s lack of experience for the political role.

At a campaign rally for Walker’s Democratic rival, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), Obama acknowledged that Walker was “a heck of a football player” and “amazing, one of the best running backs of all time.”

But that doesn’t make him the best person to represent Georgia, the former president argued.

Obama imagined people seeing Walker in the airport or hospital and allowing him to fly the airplane or do surgery because of his success on the football field.

“You wouldn’t say that,” said Obama.

Obama said “the opposite is true, too” in that people may have liked him as a president but wouldn’t want his “slow, old, skinny behind” on the football field.

“You’d have to scrape me off the field,” he cracked, before flipping his “Yes, we can” slogan to: “No, I can’t. No, I can’t.”

Elsewhere in Obama’s stumping for Warnock, he slammed Walker as “a celebrity that wants to be a politician” and attacked his “issues of character,” an apparent reference to allegations that Walker in the past paid for two women to terminate their pregnancies. Walker, who is running on a strict anti-abortion agenda, denies the claims.

Walker and Warnock are in a tight race, per polling.

Walker would be so loyal to Trump that it would mean “he is not going to be really thinking about you or your needs,” Obama said.

EPA closed a refinery that rained oil. Now it’s a ‘ticking time bomb.’

The Washington Post

EPA closed a refinery that rained oil. Now it’s a ‘ticking time bomb.’

Maxine Joselow, The Washington Post – October 28, 2022

WASHINGTON – An oil refinery in the U.S. Virgin Islands that the Environmental Protection Agency shut down in spring 2021 now poses the risk of a fire, explosion or other “catastrophic” releases of “extremely hazardous substances,” the agency found in a report released this week.

The idled plant on St. Croix, formerly known as the Limetree Bay refinery, experienced a series of accidents over the course of last year that spewed noxious fumes and showered oil droplets onto nearby homes, sending some residents to emergency rooms. Now deteriorating conditions at the massive facility, which was sold in a bankruptcy auction in December, pose a major test of the Biden administration’s commitment to environmental justice.

In September, the EPA conducted an inspection of the refinery and observed “significant corrosion” of equipment including valves, pipes and pressure relief devices, the agency said in a letter sent to the owners’ lawyers Oct. 13 and made public this week.

“These conditions demonstrate a risk of imminent release of extremely hazardous substances,” the EPA said in an inspection report. “Because of this degree of corrosion, the vessels, piping, and/or valves may fail, resulting in a catastrophic release.”

Local residents question why federal officials have not done more to protect the health of this Caribbean island’s largely Black and Brown population.

“This report is equally alarming and affirming to those of us in the civic sector who have been sounding the bullhorn about the dangers posed by this refinery for years,” Deanna James, president of the St. Croix Foundation, said in an email. “Since 2019, St. Croix Foundation and our nonprofit partners have been on a lonely advocacy journey trying to compel policymakers to consider alternatives to this ‘ticking time bomb’ on our shores – to no avail.”

Elías Rodríguez, a spokesman for EPA Region 2 – which oversees New Jersey, New York, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and eight Native American tribes – said the agency is “continuing its vigilant oversight” of the refinery.

“EPA takes very seriously our duty to ensure that the facility complies with federal environmental rules designed to protect people,” Rodríguez said in an email. “EPA will use its authorities to protect the protect the health and safety of the facility workers and those who live in nearby communities.”

The refinery, which received approval to operate during the Trump administration, has come under closer scrutiny since Biden took office. The EPA shut down the facility in May 2021 after residents across the island reported feeling nauseous and ill from the release of gaseous fumes.

In particular, EPA inspectors voiced concern about equipment containing ammonia and liquefied petroleum gas. Exposure to high levels of ammonia can cause a burning sensation in the eyes, nose and throat and can result in lung damage or death, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

After the facility’s previous owners filed for bankruptcy in July 2021, a bankruptcy judge approved the plant’s sale for $62 million in December to West Indies Petroleum and Port Hamilton Refining and Transportation.

Reached by phone on Thursday, Fermin Rodriguez, vice president and refinery manager for Port Hamilton Refining, said the company is “working with EPA and we’re providing all of the information that they requested. And we’re going to have independent inspectors here this week to validate what they indicate in the report.”

In a news release issued Wednesday, the company sought to reassure local residents and indicated that it plans to restart the refinery when it is safe to do so.

“[D]espite recent reports of concerns about the safety of the facility, the company continues maintaining the facility it purchased in January of this year in preparation for a safe start-up,” the company said. “. . . As we have stated before, the safety of our refinery employees and the safety of the community is our number one priority.”

In June, West Indies Petroleum denied its ownership interest in the facility, despite having won the bankruptcy auction. Representatives for the firm could not be reached for comment.

Judith Enck, who was tapped by President Barack Obama to lead EPA Region 2, expressed alarm that the agency waited nearly three weeks after the inspection to send the letter to the plant’s attorneys.

“This is not a situation where you politely exchange letters between lawyers,” said Enck, who now heads the Beyond Plastics advocacy organization. “This is a serious situation that needs the attention of the highest levels of EPA.”

Enck called on EPA Administrator Michael Regan to “cancel his weekend plans” and immediately board a flight to St. Croix, where she said the agency must inform residents of the imminent threats to their health. A recent survey found that roughly 20,000 people live downwind of the refinery, while in an earlier 2019 analysis, the EPA noted that 75 percent of residents of adjoining neighborhoods are people of color and 27 percent live below the poverty line.

Rodríguez, the EPA spokesman, said the agency took three weeks to send the letter because “time was required, especially with a facility of this size and complexity of the issues involved.”

Jennifer Valiulis, executive director of the St. Croix Environmental Association, lives about two miles from the plant and questioned whether the federal government would act with more urgency if the situation were unfolding in the contiguous United States.

“Not only are the surrounding communities primarily Black and Brown, but also as a territory, we have a different status in that we don’t vote for the president,” Valiulis said. “We don’t have a voting member of Congress. And so we have less ability to advocate for ourselves.”

GOP’s Cheney endorses Michigan Democrat Slotkin in a first

Associated Press

GOP’s Cheney endorses Michigan Democrat Slotkin in a first

Thomas Beaumont – October 27, 2022

Republican Rep. Liz Cheney on Thursday endorsed and plans to campaign for Rep. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, the first time that the critic of former President Donald Trump, who lost her GOP primary, has crossed party lines to formally support a Democrat.

Cheney, of Wyoming, announced her support for the two-term House member from Holly, Michigan, in a statement by the Slotkin campaign that notes she plans to headline a campaign event with Slotkin in the Lansing-area district next Tuesday.

Slotkin is competing against Republican state Sen. Tom Barrett in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District. Their race is considered a toss-up by both sides and one of the Republicans’ chief targets in their campaign to win the House majority on Nov. 8.

Cheney and Slotkin serve on the House Armed Services Committee, but their shared background in the federal government goes back further. Cheney worked in the State Department before launching her political career, as did Slotkin, who worked in the CIA and the Defense Department as well.

Both have been vocal critics of House Republicans who have sought to downplay the siege of the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. Cheney is vice chair of the House Jan. 6 committee, which recently issued a subpoena for Trump to testify.

“I have come to know Elissa as a good and honorable public servant,” Cheney said in a statement included in the Slotkin campaign’s announcement. “While Elissa and I have our policy disagreements, at a time when our nation is facing threats at home and abroad, we need serious, responsible, substantive members like Elissa in Congress.”

Slotkin’s challenger was among a group of Michigan Republican state lawmakers who met with Trump in Washington after the 2020 election and later signed a letter asking the joint session of Congress to delay certifying the results.

Cheney has recently spoken out against Republican candidates who subscribe to Trump’s disproven claim that he was denied a second term as the result of widespread voter fraud. For instance, she has said Arizona GOP nominee for governor Kari Lake poses “a huge risk for democracy” in light of the candidate’s statement that she would refuse to certify election results she opposes.

For her part, Slotkin was an early and vocal proponent of the select committee’s formation.

Cheney’s role in the investigation into the violent breach of the Capitol and her unsparing criticism of Trump, a fellow Republican whom she described as “clearly unfit for future office,” cost her reelection to Wyoming’s at-large House seat. After her defeat in the August primary, she said she was considering a 2024 presidential campaign, which Trump is also expected to wage.

Though it’s unclear how the Jan. 6 attack will be reflected in the midterm voting, an Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll this month found only 9% of U.S. adults think democracy is working “extremely” well or “very well” while 52% say it’s not working well.

The AP-NORC poll also found a large segment of Republicans, 58%, still believe Democrat Joe Biden’s presidential election wasn’t legitimate. That’s down slightly from 66% in July 2021. Exhaustive reviews in key states upheld Biden’s win, while judges — including some appointed by Trump — dismissed numerous lawsuits challenging the outcome. Trump’s own attorney general, William Barr, called the claims bogus.

“At a moment when the very heart of our democracy is being challenged, Rep. Cheney’s voice has been critical,” Slotkin said in the campaign press release. “Rep. Cheney has shown tremendous leadership over the last two years, and while we certainly don’t agree on every issue, I look forward to welcoming her to Michigan’s 7th district next week.”

As of two weeks ago, Michigan’s 7th District was the most expensive House race in the country, according to AdImpact, a nonpartisan political media tracking company. The two campaigns and outside groups had combined to spend $27 million.

Biden received more votes than Trump in the district in 2020 by less than 1 percentage point.

How Walking Can Help You Lose Weight, Decrease Stress, and Lower Blood Pressure

Prevention

How Walking Can Help You Lose Weight, Decrease Stress, and Lower Blood Pressure

Madeleine Haase, Kaitlyn Pirie, Meghan Rabbitt – October 27, 2022

How Walking Can Help You Lose Weight, Decrease Stress, and Lower Blood Pressure


“Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through the links below.”

One of the most powerful ways to maintain a healthy weight, keep your joints strong, and live longer is also one of the simplest, no matter your age. The health benefits of walking are endless, and experts agree by adding walking to your daily routine, you can greatly improve your physical and mental health.

“Walking has always been my main source of cardio, and except for when I was pregnant, I’ve been the same weight my entire life!” says fitness expert Denise Austin.

The key is to strut for, ideally, at least 30 minutes a day, says Melina B. Jampolis, M.D., author of The Doctor on Demand Diet. And whether you decide to lace up your walking shoes and walk to work, pair up with a friend, or join a hiking club, research shows that walking can do everything from lower your blood pressure and reduce your risk of chronic diseases to making your brain sharper and your heart happier.

Walking is simple enough that all fitness levels can get those daily steps in. “It has tremendous benefits, from supporting a healthy immune system to boosting your metabolism to strengthening your joints, muscles, and bones—not to mention it’s amazing for stress relief and enjoying a little ‘me time,’” says Austin.

Ahead, discover the vast benefits of walking, and what you can expect when you start strolling for just a half-hour most days of the week.

1. Improve your mood.

A glass of wine or a square (or three) of dark chocolate can blunt the edge of a rough day—but going for a walk is a zero-calorie strategy that offers the same perk, says Dr. Jampolis. In fact, research shows that just 10 minutes of walking can lift your spirits. Other recent research found walking during the COVID-19 pandemic could significantly improve mood. Plus, The effect may be amplified even more if you take a stroll through some greenery.

“Research shows that regular walking actually modifies your nervous system so much that you’ll experience a decrease in anger and hostility,” Dr. Jampolis says, especially when you’re going for a stroll through some greenery or soaking in a bit of sunlight. This can be particularly helpful during the colder months, when seasonal depression spikes.

Finally, when you make your walks social—you stride with, say, your partner, a neighbor, or a good friend—that interaction helps you feel connected, Dr. Jampolis says adds, which can make you feel happier.

2. Burn calories and maintain a healthy weight

“As you continue to walk, you may notice your pants begin to fit more loosely around your midsection, even if the number on the scale isn’t moving much,” says Dr. Jampolis. That’s because regular walking can help reduce fat and, as a result, improve your body’s response to insulin, according to research.

Itching to up your calorie burn? When walking outside, plan a route that includes hills, alternate between speed walking and a slower pace, and challenge yourself to walk the same routes on different days to see if you can beat your previous times, says Austin. For an extra boost of motivation, she also recommends aiming to hit 10,000 steps a day.

Daily walking increases metabolism by burning extra calories and by preventing muscle loss, which is particularly important as we get older,” says Ariel Iasevoli, a personal trainer in New York City.

The best part? You don’t have to tire yourself out on a treadmill at the gym to see these benefits. “One of my clients reduced her body fat by 2% in just one month by walking home from work each day, which was just under a mile,” she says.

Intervals are key here, says Michele Stanten, a walking coach and author of Prevention’s Walk Your Way to Better Health. Increasing your speed for small bouts of time during, say, a 30-minute walk allows you to burn more calories than if you strolled at a moderate pace for half an hour. This approach also benefits your cardiorespiratory system. To try adding intervals, warm up for three minutes. Then spend 25 minutes alternating between one minute of walking almost as fast as you can go and one minute of brisk walking (aiming for a six on an intensity scale of one to 10). Cool down for two minutes.

3. Reduce your risk of chronic diseases

“The physical benefits of walking are well documented,” says Scott Danberg, a paralympic athlete in Florida.

The American Diabetes Association recommends walking to lower blood sugar levels and lower your overall risk for type 2 diabetesSome research even shows that for every 1,000 daily steps you take, you could lower your systolic blood pressure by .45 points. That means if you clock in 10,000 daily steps, your systolic blood pressure is likely to be 2.25 points lower than someone else who walks only 5,000 daily steps.

One of the most cited studies on walking and health, published in The New England Journal of Medicine, found that those who walked enough to meet physical activity guidelines had a 30% lower risk of cardiovascular events (like a heart attack or stroke) compared with those who did not walk regularly.

For disease prevention, longer walks are key. Stanten recommends doing one hour-long walk at least once or twice a week.

4. Live longer

That’s right, walking can seriously help you add years to your life, and it doesn’t take much to see results. In fact, one study found that people who did just 10 to 59 minutes of moderate exercise (like brisk walking) per week had an 18% lower risk of death during the study period compared to those who were inactive. Meanwhile, people who completed the recommended 150 minutes of weekly exercise in at least 10-minute spurts had a 31% lower risk of death. Other research shows the faster you walk, the more your risk drops. The longer life benefit is believed to come from the cardiorespiratory workout that walking provides.

5. Boost your brainpower

The research here is quickly growing. In one study, brain scans of people who walked briskly for one hour three times a week showed the decision-making areas of their brains worked more efficiently than people who attended education seminars instead. Other research shows physical exercise, like walking, can improve brain function in older women. Experts think these benefits could be due in part to increased blood flow to the brain that occurs with exercise. So when you get your feet moving, your brain starts working better too!

6. Alleviate joint pain

Contrary to what you might think, pounding pavement can help improve your range of motion and mobility because walking increases blood flow to tense areas and helps strengthen the muscles surrounding your joints.

In fact, research shows that walking for at least 10 minutes a day—or about an hour every week—can stave off disability and arthritis pain in older adults. A 2019 study in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine followed 1,564 adults older than 49 with lower-body joint pain. Participants who walked for an hour each week were more likely to remain disability-free four years later. An additional report found that walking was a safe, inexpensive, and convenient physical activity for those with arthritis of all fitness levels.

7. Delay the onset of varicose veins

As you age, your risk of varicose veins increases. However, walking is a proven way to prevent them from developing, says Luis Navarro, M.D., founder and director of The Vein Treatment Center in New York City.

“The venous system includes a circulatory section known as ‘the second heart,’ which is formed by muscles, veins, and valves located in our calf and foot,” he explains. “This system works to push blood back up to the heart and lungs—and walking strengthens this secondary circulatory system by strengthening and preserving leg muscle, which boosts healthy blood flow.”

If you already suffer from varicose veins, daily walking can help ease related swelling and restlessness in your legs, says Dr. Navarro. “Also, if you are genetically predisposed to have varicose and/or spider veins, walking daily can help delay the onset.”

woman walking with dog in early sunday morning in london
LeoPatrizi – Getty Images
8. Stimulate your digestive system

If you currently count on your daily dose of coffee for keeping your digestive system going strong, get ready to start thanking your morning walk instead. That’s because a regular walking routine can greatly improve your bowel movements, says Tara Alaichamy, D.P.T., the manager of rehabilitation services at Cancer Treatment Centers of America. “One of the very first things an abdominal surgery patient is required to do is to walk because it utilizes core and abdominal muscles, encouraging movement in our GI system,” she says. In other words, when you start moving, your bowels start moving too.

9. Enhance creativity

Whether you’re feeling stuck at work or you’ve been searching for a solution to a tricky problem, research shows it’s a good idea to get moving: According to a 2014 study in the Journal of Experimental Psychology, Learning, Memory, and Cognition, going for a walk can spark creativity. “Researchers administered creative-thinking tests to subjects while seated and while walking and found that the walkers thought more creatively than the sitters,” says Dr. Jampolis.

10. Improve your sleep

If you work out regularly, you’ll sleep better at night. That’s because physical activity naturally boosts the effects of melatonin, the sleep hormone. A 2019 study from Sleep found that postmenopausal women who do light to moderate-intensity physical activity snooze better at night than those who are sedentary. Another recent study found healthy adults who walked daily had a significant positive impact on sleep quality and length of sleep. Walking also helps reduce pain and stress, which can cause sleep disturbances.

11. Kickstart your immune system.

In this era of pandemics and super-viruses, we’re all looking for ways to improve our immunity, and walking is a great place to start. Research shows that moderate-intensity exercise—and walking in particular—ramps up our immune system. It increases the number of immune cells that attack pathogens in our body, which lowers your risk of becoming seriously ill from infectious diseases. Not only that, if you do get sick, research has found that people who walk more spend less time in the hospital. One study even found those who walked regularly could reduce their risk of dying from pneumonia compared to those who don’t exercise regularly.

12. Make other goals seem more attainable.

When you become a regular walker, you will have established a regular routine—and when you have a routine, you are more likely to continue with the activity and take on new healthy behaviors. “Our bodies are not meant to be sedentary all day. Any type of movement is better than no movement, and being able to find a type of movement best suited for your age and fitness level is super important so you feel empowered and motivated to stick with it,” says Marisa Golan, a certified personal trainer, Base Ops Fitness Coach at Fort Athletic Club, and owner of e(M)powered personal training.

“Walking for older individuals is a great gateway exercise to get your muscles moving and your heart elevated. You can also speed it up to more of a speed walk to increase your heart rate.”

Plus, walking can help you believe in yourself and your health goals. Recent research found that of nearly 5,000 adults interviewed, those who walked regularly had higher health perceptions and were more likely to have better mental health.

Blood pressure medicine recall: Some pills pose potential cancer risk, FDA announces

USA Today

Blood pressure medicine recall: Some pills pose potential cancer risk, FDA announces

Natalie Neysa Alund – October 27, 2022

A pharmaceutical company is recalling a blood pressure medication due to a potential cancer risk, the FDA announced this week.

Aurobindo Pharma USA is recalling two lots of quinapril and hydrochlorothiazide tablets due to levels of nitrosamine. The tablets are commonly prescribed for the treatment of hypertension to lower blood pressure.

Low levels of nitrosamine, or N-nitroso-quinapril, is regularly found in water and food including cured and grilled meats, dairy products and vegetables. Exposure to high levels, the FDA reports, has been linked with an elevated risk of cancer.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service announced the company’s voluntary recall Wednesday.

Product recalls? Read about all the latest FDA recalls with USA TODAY

According to the FDA advisory, the medication are “pink colored, scored, round shaped, biconvex, film-coated tablets, debossed with ‘D’ on the scored side and ‘19’ on the other side.”

Pork sausage recall: Bob Evans recalls thousands of pounds of pork sausage across US

So far, the FDA reported no adverse events have been linked to this issue.

“Patients should contact their doctor or health care provider about whether to continue taking their medication, or whether to consider an alternative treatment prior to returning their medication,” according to an advisory on the FDA’s website.

Related video: How to stay on top of food recalls and prevent foodborne illnesses

How to stay on top of food recalls and prevent foodborne illnesses

About 128,000 are hospitalized and 3,000 people die each year from preventable foodborne illnesses.

Consumers with questions about the recall can call 1-866-850-2876 or email pvg@aurobindousa.com.

Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY. 

Oil giants sell thousands of California wells, raising worries about future liability

Los Angeles Times

Oil giants sell thousands of California wells, raising worries about future liability

Mark Olalde, Co-published with ProPublica – October 27, 2022

VENTURA, CA - OCTOBER 14: Aera Energy in Ventura is a joint venture between Shell and Exxon, has operated in California for 25 years, where it accounts for a quarter of the state's production. However, 40% of Aera's wells sit idle and are in need of cleanup, and its name brand backers are looking to offload assets that are fast becoming liabilities. Aera's thousands of idle wells that are set to be handed to IKAV have sat inactive for a median of 5.5 years, according to the most recently published state data. Photographed on Friday, Oct. 14, 2022. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)
Aera Energy wells in Ventura. The joint venture between Shell and Exxon has announced plans to sell thousands of California gas and oil wells to the German assett management group IKAV. (Myung J. Chun / Los Angeles Times)

The price of oil produced in California this year reached its highest level in a decade. President Biden is releasing millions of barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve to keep prices in check. And fossil fuel companies’ earnings are so high that Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for a windfall tax on their profits.

It might seem like a lucrative time to drill for oil in the Golden State. Yet, some of the world’s largest oil companies, several of which have done business in the state for more than a century, are selling assets and beginning to pull out of California.

Even with strong cash flow in the short term, producers have more to gain from offloading wells and the associated liability — chiefly expensive environmental cleanup — than from pumping more oil and gas, experts say.

“This is the kind of deal you see when an industry is in its twilight,” said Andrew Logan, senior director for oil and gas at Ceres, a nonprofit focused on sustainability in companies and markets.

Some industry experts, lawmakers and environmentalists are concerned about the recent deals, noting that the sales shift environmental liability from corporate powerhouses to less-capitalized firms, increasing the risk that aging wells will be left orphaned, unplugged and leaking oil, brine and climate-warming methane. They see a threat that the state’s oil industry could repeat a pattern seen in other extractive industries like coal mining and lead to taxpayers bearing cleanup costs.

California Assemblymember Steve Bennett, a Democrat who has long worked on oil policy, has seen oil companies in his Ventura district walk away from environmental liability. “It gets passed on to a smaller company and to a smaller company until someone declares bankruptcy and the public is stuck with the cleanup bill,” he said.

IKAV enters the fray

Supermajors Shell and ExxonMobil recently agreed to sell more than 23,000 wells in California, which they owned through a joint venture called Aera Energy, to German asset management group IKAV for an estimated $4 billion. Aera accounts for about a quarter of California’s oil and gas production, largely from pumping in Kern and Ventura counties.

Shell and ExxonMobil say the deal will strengthen their businesses.

But Greg Rogers, an attorney and accountant who researches the oil and gas industry, said the deal allows the sellers to shed decommissioning costs. “You got bad assets with big liabilities, and you can get rid of both at the same time. That’s a win for Exxon and Shell,” he said.

IKAV will inherit a portfolio littered with wells past their prime. Nearly 9,000 Aera wells were idle as of early October, meaning about 38% of the company’s unplugged inventory isn’t producing oil or gas, according to state data.

“With oil being over $100 a barrel, any well that would’ve come back has likely come back,” Logan said, adding that long-idled wells are simply “orphan wells in waiting.”

In an email, Aera spokesperson Kimberly Ellis-Thompson said the company is capable of managing its large portfolio of idle wells. “Since 2019, when new idle well management program regulations were published, we have met or exceeded the requirements for retiring idle wells,” she said. The company has decommissioned and plugged nearly 1,000 wells on average every year since then, she said.

IKAV, Aera’s soon-to-be new owner, manages about $2.5 billion in energy-focused assets. News releases on the Aera sale quoted Constantin von Wasserschleben, IKAV’s chairman, as saying, “We advocate a co-existence between renewable and conventional energy for decades to come.”

As the world increasingly shifts to cheaper renewable energy to address climate change, IKAV has been snapping up oil and gas wells from supermajors exiting the market. The firm, which once focused exclusively on renewable energy, began expanding into oil and gas in 2020 when it purchased BP’s gas assets in the San Juan Basin, spanning New Mexico and Colorado. The deal was part of BP’s push to divest $10 billion in assets, including aging American gas fields.

BP declined to comment.

If it’s not profitable to return wells to production, they need to be plugged. But if a company doesn’t plug its wells before walking away, wells are orphaned and the cleanup costs ultimately fall to taxpayers and current operators through fees.

This has happened with thousands of wells in California and hundreds of thousands, or more, across the country.

For example, the Greka group of companies left more than 750 wells for California to plug when its wealthy owner began pushing his businesses into bankruptcy in 2016 and retired to his Santa Maria winery. And a subsidiary of one of the country’s largest mining companies, Freeport-McMoRan, left dozens of likely orphaned wells, state records show, even though the company brought in nearly $23 billion in revenue last year.

Greka’s CEO didn’t respond to a request for comment, and a Freeport spokesperson said the company is working with the state to verify details about its orphaned wells.

To minimize the government’s exposure if wells are orphaned, producers must put up a bond, typically held as cash or a surety policy. The bonds act like a security deposit: The company gets its bond back if it cleans up its mess, but the government keeps the money if the company orphans its wells.

Newsom has called for an end to all oil extraction in the state by 2045, but his administration has yet to use another tool to hold producers responsible for cleanup.

California has the authority to ask for an additional $30 million in financial security from a single operator but only requires Aera to hold a $3-million bond. As a result, Aera’s bonds cover less than half a percent of the $1.1 billion that ProPublica estimates it would cost the state to plug the wells based on the average cost to California for past well plugging. (That estimate does not include the additional cost of full surface remediation.)

California Oil and Gas supervisor Uduak-Joe Ntuk said in a statement that his agency reviews bonds for all oil companies in the state but did not say whether the amount of Aera’s financial security would be increased through the sale.

Aera, Shell and ExxonMobil did not respond to a question about the gap between their bonds and the estimated cost to plug their wells. IKAV did not respond to requests for comment. In an email, ExxonMobil spokesperson Meghan Macdonald said that “when we make divestments, we always try to work with partners like Aera and IKAV who are also committed to a lower-emissions future.”

Costs vary widely, but states have paid $100,000 or more to plug wells — and the same to clean up surface pollution — meaning there’s a significant gap between what’s needed and what California has available in bonds.

“If they don’t have the financial resources when it comes time to plug those wells, there’s a possibility that the public will be left holding the bag and paying those costs even though it’s the company that made the profit from selling the oil,” said Hollin Kretzmann, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity.

Who will be liable?

More than 240,000 wells have pierced the state since the late 1800s, when Southern California’s first producing well spouted oil near where Dodger Stadium now stands. Of those, more than 5,300 are “orphan, deserted, and potentially deserted wells,” according to data the California Geologic Energy Management Division published in September.

Many on that list belong to individuals who died long ago or companies that dissolved in the shuffling of corporate paperwork. However, some responsible parties are still around but are no longer legally liable after offloading their wells through sales and bankruptcies.

So who will be responsible for cleanup?

California is unique because state law allows regulators to call on former operators such as Shell and ExxonMobil to help pay for plugging onshore oil wells if they are later orphaned, even by a different owner. But companies have escaped responsibility under this stronger legal standard by exploiting loopholes such as a porous bankruptcy code.

Some experts question whether Shell and ExxonMobil would be required to pay if the wells they are selling to IKAV are ultimately orphaned, saying their ownership of the wells through a separate company, Aera, might shield them from liability.

“Exxon and Shell do not directly operate those wells. There’s corporate structuring going on in between,” Rogers said. And IKAV now adds another layer of corporate paperwork, holding the wells it acquired in New Mexico, Colorado and California through companies that were registered in Delaware shortly before the sales.

Alongside Aera, two other companies — California Resources Corp. and Chevron — account for the vast majority of California’s oil and gas production, and they too are shrinking their positions in the state. California Resources, which has been in and out of Chapter 11 bankruptcy in recent years, sold most of its Ventura Basin operations in November 2021. Chevron recently sold its California headquarters and plans to consolidate some of its unused Bakersfield office space as it shifts employees to Texas. Reuters reported in early October that Berry Corp., another large oil company that for many years has operated in California and Utah, was considering selling.

Berry did not respond to a request for comment.

Shell acknowledged its California wells were overvalued, suggesting the wells are even nearer to the end of their economic life than previously predicted. The company is wiping as much as $400 million off its books through the sale via an impairment charge.

Shell has been shedding assets in part to hand off associated greenhouse gas emissions. A 2021 Dutch court ruling ordered it to significantly reduce emissions, although the company has appealed the ruling. Zoe Yujnovich, the company’s upstream director, said in a news release about the sale of Aera that Shell will instead be “focusing on positions with high growth potential.”

For its part, ExxonMobil plans to focus on oil and natural gas that costs less to extract, Liam Mallon, president of ExxonMobil Upstream Co., said in a news release announcing the sale to IKAV.

Large public companies are handing off oil and gas assets around the country. Between 2017 and 2021, more than a quarter of oil and gas mergers and acquisitions took public companies private, with private equity often involved, according to a study conducted by the Environmental Defense Fund. The report voiced concern that private companies are less transparent and have less incentive to protect the environment.

California is just the beginning

With more than 2 million unplugged oil wells believed to be scattered across the U.S., California is the tip of the iceberg.

A massive boom in American oil and gas production over the past 15 years spurred by technological advances in hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling unlocked previously inaccessible geologic formations. But the shale revolution and current market highs buoyed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine won’t last forever.

Longtime petroleum reservoir engineer Dwayne Purvis laid out the reality at a recent conference. This shale revolution revitalized only some oil fields, and more than 90% of the country’s unplugged wells are either idle or minimally producing and unlikely to make a major comeback, according to his research.

“The bulk of the wells are producing from plays where there is no hope of another deus ex machina,” Purvis said, referencing nearly depleted oil fields.

The oil industry also faces an impending decline in demand from the shift to renewable energy and the trend toward banning the sale of new internal-combustion engine cars, as well as plans to phase out drilling in metro areas.

“The overall industry is being assaulted right now through policy changes at the state and federal level. That’s the story writ large,” Rogers said. “The industry is dying.”

Olalde reports for ProPublica. ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. 

The Impeachment of Joe Biden

The Atlantic – Ideas

The Impeachment of Joe Biden

And possibly Kamala Harris, and Merrick Garland, and Alejandro Mayorkas, and Antony Blinken

By Barton Gellman – October 26, 2022

A collage featuring Joe Biden and four Republican politicians
Photo-collage images: Graeme Jennings / Getty; Dustin Franz / Bloomberg / Getty; Brendan Smialowski / AFP / Getty; Anna Moneymaker / Getty; Nicholas Kamm / AFP / Getty

Sometime next year, after an interval of performative investigations, Republicans in the House are going to impeach Joe Biden. This may not be their present plan, but they will work themselves up to it by degrees. The pressure from the MAGA base will build. A triggering event will burst all restraints. Eventually, Republicans will leave themselves little choice.

This prediction rests, of course, on the assumption that Republicans will win control of the House next month, which appears likely: Democrats would need to win an improbable number of toss-up races to keep their majority. And an impeachment resolution requires just a simple majority to pass the House.

Nothing in the public record offers the slightest reason to believe that the Senate, even if it is under Republican control, would convict and remove Biden from office. Still, House Republicans will come to see plenty of advantages in impeaching Biden—and, possibly, several other top administration officials.

Already, there is enormous demand for impeachment. A University of Massachusetts Amherst poll in May found that 68 percent of Republican voters think the House should impeach Biden. A majority expect that it will impeach him. Thwarting those expectations would be dangerous for any House Republican.

The poll numbers for impeachment correspond closely to the belief among Republicans that Biden is an illegitimate president. This is no coincidence: Impeachment is the corollary of election denial—the invincible certainty that Biden cheated in 2020 and Donald Trump won. If you truly believe that and haven’t joined a militia, impeachment is the least of the remedies you will accept.

Election denial is the core position of the GOP today. Two-thirds of the Republican caucus in the House voted to overturn the presidential election in 2020—including Kevin McCarthy, who is likely to become the next speaker. A new cohort of incoming members, Republican nominees in safe red districts, has campaigned as election deniers. After a number of forced retirements and establishment defeats in primaries this year, very few party members will publicly concede that Biden won a free and fair election.

“The impeachment buzz will be at the backdrop of every conversation about a Republican agenda,” Kevin Madden, a former top GOP spokesperson and strategist, told me. MAGA true believers think establishment Republicans “for too long allowed Democrats to play hardball, and now’s the time to really sort of fight fire with fire.” Trump’s supporters, he said, want “retribution.”

McCarthy has so far equivocated on the question of impeachment. His allies tell me he will instead try to channel this energy into congressional investigations of the president, his family, and his administration. The prospective chairs of the relevant committees, Oversight and Judiciary, have already laid the groundwork for these probes in planning meetings and public pronouncements. But taking the next step toward impeachment is risky, and could backfire with voters. McCarthy wants to oversee subpoenas and Benghazi-style hearings to weaken the president ahead of the 2024 election, not issue a call for Biden’s removal. (McCarthy and his staff did not respond to a request for comment.)

But there is little reason to think that McCarthy can resist the GOP’s impulse to impeach once it gathers strength. He is a notably weak leader of a conference that proved unmanageable for his predecessors Paul Ryan and John Boehner. If he does in fact reach the speakership, his elevation will be a testament to his strategy of avoiding conflict with those forces.

Donald Trump remains the strongest influence on McCarthy’s caucus. Anytime he cares to intervene, he will be the dominant figure in setting Republican priorities in the House. “Trump has the ability to get a message out, to motivate the grassroots base of the Republican Party,” a close McCarthy ally told me. “And then that then turns around and motivates all these members.”

And what will Trump want? Doug Heye, another McCarthy ally and former member of the House leadership staff, says the answer is obvious.

“Donald Trump’s going to want to impeach everybody,” he said.

We tend to think of presidential impeachment proceedings as rare. The Constitution defined the power to impeach in 1787. Nearly a century passed before Congress picked up that weapon, impeaching and (barely) acquitting Andrew Johnson in 1868. Another hundred years passed before Richard Nixon resigned ahead of certain impeachment in 1974. Then came Bill Clinton, impeached in 1998 and acquitted the following year, and Donald Trump, impeached twice—in 2019 and 2021—and acquitted twice.

Five times, then, even if you count Nixon, in 235 years. But there is a lesser known and more extensive history. Twelve presidents—including all but one since Jimmy Carter—have been subject to impeachment resolutions. Amazingly, given the animus he attracted, the exception was Barack Obama.

“In the 21st century,” the presidential historian Barbara A. Perry told me, impeachment “is now routine.”

But while most attempts at impeachment have been symbolic gestures that had no chance to win a majority in the House, the coming Biden impeachment will not be that kind. Its prospects of passing and going to the Senate for trial will be substantial.

On January 21, 2021, Joe Biden’s first full day in office, Marjorie Taylor Greene filed the first article of impeachment against him. At the time, House Resolution 57 was no more than a sneer at a president whom Greene called illegitimate. With the House under Democratic control, Greene had to know she would get no floor vote or committee referral. The House leadership did not even acknowledge the submission.

But the threat that Greene posed to Biden was not empty. In the long term, it will prove to be very real.

Greene—for all her history of anti-Semitic, racist, and ludicrously conspiratorial remarks—holds a position of growing influence in her party. Unlike Nancy Pelosi, the current speaker, McCarthy cannot ignore Greene’s next impeachment resolutions, which she has promised in the new year.

“Marjorie Taylor Greene is going to have, if not more of, as much a say in the message and political focus of a Republican House conference than Kevin McCarthy will,” Madden said. “That’s just a very real pressure Kevin McCarthy is going to face.”

Greene’s day-one impeachment maneuver set the tone for the Republican conference. In August of 2021 she offered three more resolutions, gathering eight co-sponsors, including fellow bomb-throwers and election deniers Matt Gaetz and Paul Gosar. Soon other members of the Freedom Caucus caught on.

Another resolution was introduced the following month. Yet another less than two weeks after that. Three days later, Lauren Boebert introduced a pair of resolutions against Biden and Kamala Harris. (In a nice piece of recursive logic, one of the charges against Harris was failing to invoke the Twenty-Fifth Amendment to remove Biden.) The barrage continued with another impeachment resolution in April, and still another—from Greene again—last month.

None of these resolutions will be the one that gets Biden impeached. They all expire shortly after the new year, when the 117th Congress draws to a close. When the next Congress gavels in, Republicans will likely control the committees, the floor, and the rules. At some point in 2023, momentum for impeachment will build.

What charge could republicans use on Biden?

Advocates will have to come up with something that a majority of the House will endorse, and that will take time.

I talked with a lot of Republicans for this story, and the subject they mentioned most often was the president’s son Hunter Biden. “Hunter” is an all-purpose emblem of scandal in the GOP, and to some extent that is justified. He has admitted to abusing drugs; he was thinly qualified for his position on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural-gas company, which he held while his father was vice president; and he is reportedly under federal investigation for alleged tax crimes and for lying about his drug use on an application to buy a gun. (He has said that professional advisers helped him with his tax affairs and is confident they were handled legally.)

The problem for those who want to impeach is how to connect the president to his son’s alleged misadventures. Republicans who mentioned “the Hunter issue”—even those who predicted that it would be the central predicate for impeachment—grew vague when I asked them how it demonstrated wrongdoing by the president. One said it showed “a pay-to-play scheme,” but did not specify who paid whom for what corrupt purpose.

The only formal accusation against Biden in connection with his son came in Greene’s first impeachment resolution. The evidence she cited was scant. The best Greene had was a 2011 email in which a business associate told Hunter Biden: “We need to get these guys to an event or something where they get to just formally meet your Dad.” Greene concludes from this that Biden “allowed his son to trade appointments with his father … in exchange for financial compensation,” but no evidence suggests that Hunter agreed to arrange such a meeting, much less that it happened.

A former House leadership aide close to McCarthy said an impeachment charge against the president based on his son’s conduct would be politically effective only “if it was discovered that Joe Biden had been very significantly involved in making money for Hunter … and he had done something clearly illegal.”

Another oft-mentioned reason for impeachment is Biden’s immigration policies and border enforcement. One impeachment resolution offered last year alleged that Biden “has allowed illegal aliens to enter the United States in violation of immigration law, admitted aliens who have tested positive for COVID-19 into the United States, countered the will of Congress by not completing the southern border wall, [and] deprived border agents of the sufficient manpower and resources needed to secure the border.” This is a policy dispute, but Congress gets to define high crimes and misdemeanors any way it likes.

The botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year offers another potential basis for impeachment. A resolution backed by eight Republicans said Biden “failed to secure the extraction of thousands of American civilians and Afghan allies before and during the withdrawal.” The resolution also said, accurately, that Biden “armed our enemies by leaving numerous weapons, ammunition, and other military equipment which could be used against American citizens, allies, and other civilians in Afghanistan.”

Republicans have also offered the federal government’s temporary ban on evictions as grounds for impeachment. According to three members of the Freedom Caucus, Biden showed “disrespect for Congress” and disregard for a (nonbinding) concurring Supreme Court opinion that cast doubt on the CDC’s authority to halt evictions.

Last month, in her latest impeachment charge, Greene accused Biden of “endangering, compromising, and undermining the energy security of the United States by selling oil from the United States’ Strategic Petroleum Reserve to foreign nations.”

None of these rises to impeachable conduct by historical standards. But the GOP will find some new cause for outrage. Some leading Republicans say the details won’t even matter.

Senator Ted Cruz, speaking on his podcast in December, opined that Biden’s impeachment, “whether it’s justified or not,” will come in revenge for Trump’s. “The Democrats weaponized impeachment. They used it for partisan purposes to go after Trump because they disagreed with him. And one of the real disadvantages of doing that … is the more you weaponize it and turn it into a partisan cudgel, you know, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.”

As George Conway, an establishment Republican turned Trump critic, put it, “This is a party that basically lives off of false equivalences now.”

For months, house republicans and conservative think tanks have been meeting to game out an aggressive agenda of hearings and investigations for the coming term. Much of the action will center on the Oversight and Judiciary Committees, expected to be chaired by James Comer and Jim Jordan, respectively. The overarching purpose will be to inflict political damage on the president in the run-up to the 2024 election. But Biden will not be the only target of these investigations.

Mike Howell, who leads the Heritage Foundation’s Oversight Project and took part in a May planning retreat with senior congressional staffers, told me that oversight will quickly lead to impeachment debates—beginning with the Homeland Security secretary, Alejandro Mayorkas. “Impeachment comes up in virtually every conversation you have about what to do when the next conference gavels in,” he said. “And I’m talking about the impeachment of Mayorkas.”

Last year, an impeachment resolution against Mayorkas won 31 co-sponsors, including Scott Perry, the chair of the Freedom Caucus. This year, Heritage published what amounts to a draft impeachment resolution against him. And Republicans have already introduced articles of impeachment against Kamala Harris, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

All of this momentum, Howell said, could naturally lead to the president. “I think the arguments are there” to impeach Biden, he told me. “You have your pick of multiple different types of impeachable conduct across the board.”

For die-hard Trump allies, impeaching Biden is good politics no matter what. But for McCarthy and the rest of the prospective House leadership, there are pitfalls. “There are lots of reasons not to go on an impeachment bonanza,” says Brendan Buck, who was a top aide to both Boehner and Ryan, “not the least of which is that it could politically be viewed as overreach and make House Republicans look crazy and make Joe Biden, by contrast, look better.”

But McCarthy’s equivocation on impeachment carries the seeds of its own collapse. He wants to mollify angry voters and zealous members of his conference by orchestrating aggressive investigations of Biden, but hopes to stop short of calling for the president’s removal. That strategy has two likely outcomes, either of which spells trouble for McCarthy. If the investigations don’t damage Biden, the party’s base will insist on stronger medicine. If they do, the base will demand that McCarthy finish the job.

The tipping point may be Jim Jordan. He is a co-founder and leading member of the Freedom Caucus, and no stranger to extreme rhetoric about Biden. But his looming chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee will nudge him toward institutional prerogatives and the orderly execution of McCarthy’s plans. So far he has been carefully ambiguous about impeachment, saying, “That’s definitely a discussion we have to have,” but raising the bar for proceeding: “The conference has to decide. You have to have complete buy-in from the entire conference and the leadership of our conference.”

So Jordan is with McCarthy’s program for now, but he has long made sure to position himself on the front lines against Democrats. He will not allow himself to be outdone by zealots like Greene and Gaetz once momentum for impeachment builds. He will want to be sure that his committee is the primary venue for confronting Biden. When he embraces impeachment, the die will be cast.

More than anything, my confidence that impeachment is coming relies in the end on a firm belief that Trump will demand it. His own impeachments humiliated him, and losing to Biden was an injury from which his ego has yet to recover. He is obsessed with revenge. His lifelong survival technique is to turn every accusation back on his opponents. And when he is on the defensive, as he is now on multiple legal fronts, he is especially prone to deflect attacks elsewhere.

In the new year, there will come an event that triggers all those instincts. Given his reaction to the Mar-a-Lago search warrant, and his barely veiled warnings about violence if he is indicted, that event might well be the revelation of criminal charges against him. Trump’s explosive reaction, amplified by his followers and enablers, will change every Republican’s calculus on impeachment.

Gradually, and then suddenly, impeachment will become as much a litmus test for Republican House members as the Big Lie. McCarthy—“my Kevin,” as Trump styles him—will not hold back that tide. In the end, he will not even try.


Republicans Claim They Can Tame Inflation, but Economists Have Their Doubts

THe New York Times

Republicans Claim They Can Tame Inflation, but Economists Have Their Doubts

Jim Tankersley and Emily Cochrane – October 26, 2022

The U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on Sept. 27, 2022. (Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times)
The U.S. Capitol Building in Washington on Sept. 27, 2022. (Haiyun Jiang/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — Republicans are riding a wave of anger over inflation as they seek to recapture the House and the Senate this fall, hammering Democrats on President Joe Biden’s economic policies, which they say have fueled the fastest price gains in 40 years.

Republican candidates have centered their economic agenda on promises to help Americans cope with everyday price increases and to increase growth. They have pledged to reduce government spending and to make permanent parts of the 2017 Republican tax cuts that are set to expire over the next three years — including incentives for corporate investment and tax reductions for individuals.

They have vowed to repeal the corporate tax increases that Biden signed into law in August while gutting funding for the IRS, which was given more money to help the United States go after high-earning and corporate tax cheats.

“The very fact that Republicans are poised to take back majorities in both chambers is an indictment of the policies of this administration,” said Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., noting that “if you look at the spending that they did on a partisan basis, we certainly would be able to stop that.”

But while Republicans insist they will be better stewards of the economy, few economists on either end of the ideological spectrum expect the party’s proposals to meaningfully reduce inflation in the short term. Instead, many say some of what Republicans are proposing — including tax cuts for high earners and businesses — could actually make price pressures worse by pumping more money into the economy.

“It is unlikely that any of the policies proposed by Republicans would meaningfully reduce inflation in 2023, when rapidly rising prices will still be a major problem for the economy and for consumers,” said Michael R. Strain, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

On Wednesday, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee held a virtual meeting where they detailed plans to make the 2017 tax law provisions permanent, billing the move as a crucial step toward improving the nation’s economy.

“As we look forward to the strong probability of an upcoming recession, there is new urgency to preserve these pro-growth policies,” said Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla.

As they position themselves for the midterm elections, Republicans have also indicated that they might try to hold the nation’s borrowing limit hostage to achieve spending cuts. The debt ceiling, which caps how much the federal government can borrow, has increasingly become a fraught arena for political brinkmanship.

Multiple top Republicans have signaled that unless Biden agrees to reduce future government spending, they will refuse to lift the borrowing cap. That would effectively bar the federal government from issuing new bonds to finance its deficit spending, potentially jeopardizing on-time payments for military salaries and safety-net benefits, and roiling bond markets.

Biden has tried to push back against the Republicans and cast the election not as a referendum on his economic policies, but as a choice between Democratic policies to reduce costs on health care and electricity and Republican efforts to repeal those policies. He has accused Republicans of stoking further price increases with tax cuts that could add to the federal budget deficit, and of risking financial calamity by refusing to raise the debt limit.

“We, the Democrats, are the ones that are fiscally responsible. Let’s get that straight now, OK?” Biden said during remarks Monday to workers at the Democratic National Committee. “We’re investing in all of America, reducing everyday costs while also lowering the deficit at the same time. Republicans are fiscally reckless, pushing tax cuts for the very wealthy that aren’t paid for, and exploiting the deficit that is making inflation worse.”

The challenge for Biden is that voters do not seem to be demanding details from Republicans and are instead putting their trust in them to turn around an economy that voters believe is headed in the wrong direction. Polls suggest Americans trust Republicans by a wide margin to handle inflation and other economic issues.

In a nationwide deluge of campaign ads and in public remarks, Republicans have pinned much of their inflation-fighting agenda on halting a stimulus spending spree that began under President Donald Trump and continued under Biden, in an effort to help people and businesses survive the pandemic recession. Those efforts have largely ended, and Biden has shown no desire to pass further stimulus legislation at a time of rapid price growth.

Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, the top Republican on the House Budget Committee, said in a statement that “the first step in combating inflation is to stop the historically reckless spending spree occurring under one-party Democrat rule in Washington, and that will only happen with a Republican majority in Congress.”

Economists largely agree that the Federal Reserve is most responsible for fighting inflation, which policymakers are trying to do with rapid interest rates increases. But they say Congress could plausibly help the Fed by reducing budget deficits, in order to slow the amount of consumer spending power in the economy.

One way to do that would be to significantly and quickly reduce federal spending. Such a move could result in widespread government layoffs and reduced support for low-income individuals — who would be less able to afford increasingly expensive food and other staples — and could prompt a recession.

“The amount of cuts you’d have to do to move the needle on inflation are completely off the table,” said Jon Lieber, a former aide to Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky who is now the Eurasia Group’s managing director for the United States.

Still, Lieber said that likelihood would not sully the Republican pitch to voters this fall. “Midterm votes are a referendum on the party in power,” he said, “and the party in power has responsibility for inflation.”

Biden administration officials contend that the Republican plans, rather than curbing inflation, could worsen America’s fiscal situation.

Administration economists estimate that two policies favored by Republicans — repealing a new minimum tax on large corporations included in the Inflation Reduction Act and extending some business tax cuts from Trump’s 2017 legislation — could collectively increase the federal budget deficit by about $90 billion next year.

Such an increase could cause the Federal Reserve to raise rates even faster than it already is, further choking economic growth. Or, alternatively, it could add a small amount to the annual inflation rate — perhaps as much as 0.2 percentage points. Fully repealing the Inflation Reduction Act would also mean raising future costs for prescription drugs for seniors on Medicare, including for insulin, and potentially raising future electricity costs.

“Their plan to repeal the IRA and double down on the Trump tax cuts for the wealthy will worsen inflation,” said Jared Bernstein, a member of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers. “On top of that, they’re also explicit that they’re coming for Social Security and Medicare, making this a terribly destructive agenda that starts by fighting the Fed and moves on to devastating vulnerable seniors.”

Conservative economists say the inflation impact of extending Trump’s tax cuts could be much smaller, because those extensions could lead businesses to invest more, people to work more and growth to increase across the economy. They also say Republicans could help relieve price pressures, by following through on their proposals to reduce federal regulations governing new energy development.

“Those things are going to be positive for investment, job creation and capacity” in the economy, said Donald Schneider, a former chief economist for Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee and the deputy head of U.S. policy at Piper Sandler.

A budget proposal unveiled this year by the Republican Study Committee, a conservative policy group within the House Republican conference, included plans to permanently extend the Trump tax cuts and to impose work requirements on federal benefits programs, in hopes of reducing federal spending on the programs and increasing the number of workers in the economy.

“We know for a fact that federal spending continues to keep inflation high, which is why a top priority in next year’s Republican majority will be to root out waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayer money,” Rep. Kevin Hern, R-Okla., said in a statement. Hern, who helped devise the budget, called it “one of many proposals to address the dire situation we’re in.”

As they eye the majority, top Republicans have suggested that they will consider an economically risky strategy to potentially force Biden to agree to spending cuts, including for safety-net programs. Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California, who is the minority leader and is seen as the clear pick to be speaker should Republicans win control of the House, suggested to Punchbowl News this month that he would be open to withholding Republican votes to raise the federal borrowing limit unless Biden and Democrats agreed to policy changes that curb spending.

How to use that leverage has divided Republicans. Some, like Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who fended off a Trump-backed primary challenger, are supportive of that option.

But other Republicans — particularly candidates laboring to present a more centrist platform in swing districts held by Democrats — have shied away from openly supporting cuts to safety-net programs.

“Absolutely not,” Lori Chavez-DeRemer, a Republican and former mayor running in Oregon’s 5th Congressional District, said when asked if she would support cuts to Medicare and Social Security as a way to rein in federal spending. “Cutting those programs is not where I, as a Republican, see myself. I want to make sure that we can fill those coffers.”

U.S. Officials Had a Secret Oil Deal With the Saudis. Or So They Thought.

The New York Times

U.S. Officials Had a Secret Oil Deal With the Saudis. Or So They Thought.

Mark Mazzetti, Edward Wong and Adam Entous – October 26, 2022

President Joe Biden, center, is greeted by dignitaries as he arrives at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Friday, July, 15, 2022. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)
President Joe Biden, center, is greeted by dignitaries as he arrives at King Abdulaziz International Airport in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on Friday, July, 15, 2022. (Doug Mills/The New York Times)

WASHINGTON — As President Joe Biden was planning a politically risky trip to Saudi Arabia this summer, his top aides thought they had struck a secret deal to boost oil production through the end of the year — an arrangement that could have helped justify breaking a campaign pledge to shun the kingdom and its crown prince.

It didn’t work out that way.

Biden went through with the trip. But earlier this month, Saudi Arabia and Russia steered a group of oil-producing countries in voting to slash oil production by 2 million barrels per day, the opposite of the outcome the administration thought it had secured as the Democratic Party struggles to deal with inflation and high gas prices heading into the November elections.

The move led angry Biden administration officials to reassess America’s relationship with the kingdom and produced a flurry of accusatory statements between the two governments — including a charge by the White House that Saudi Arabia was helping Russia in its war in Ukraine.

Lawmakers who had been told about the trip’s benefits in classified briefings and other conversations that included details of the oil deal — which has not been previously disclosed and was supposed to lead to a surge in production between September and December — have been left fuming that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman duped the administration.

This account is based on interviews with American officials and officials from Gulf Arab nations, as well as Middle East experts with knowledge of discussions between the two nations.

What happened over the last half-year is a story of handshake agreements, wishful thinking, missed signals and finger-pointing over broken promises. Far from rebuilding a relationship with a leader Biden had once pledged to treat as a “pariah” after the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the outcome has been another low point in America’s tumultuous ties with Saudi Arabia.

The episode is also a revealing example of how Saudi Arabia, under the leadership of its ambitious and often ruthless crown prince, appears eager to shed some of its longtime reliance on the United States, with Crown Prince Mohammed trying to position Saudi Arabia as a powerhouse of its own.

American officials said that, even days before the OPEC+ decision, they had received assurances from the crown prince there would be no production cuts — and when they learned of the Saudi reversal, they made a futile last-ditch push to change minds in the royal court.

The Saudi Energy Ministry said in a statement that “the kingdom rejects these allegations and stresses that such mischaracterizations made by anonymous sources are entirely false.”

The ministry added, “The decisions of OPEC Plus are reached by the consensus of all members and determined solely by market fundamentals, not politics.”

White House officials admit they were angered and surprised by what they said was a Saudi about-face, but insist their overall strategy to lower energy costs is working.

At the same time, U.S. officials are bracing for another potential price surge in December, if a European embargo on Russian oil goes into effect and the Saudis refuse to increase oil production to make up for the anticipated reduction in supply. The officials say that would be a sure sign that the Saudis were helping the Russians by undermining the American and European-led plan.

“While we clearly disagreed with the OPEC Plus decision in early October, we recognize the importance of continuing to work and communicate with Saudi Arabia and other producers to ensure a stable and fair global energy market,” said Amos Hochstein, Biden’s energy envoy.

Even some of the president’s staunchest supporters have called the episode an example of the administration sacrificing principles for political expediency — and having little to show for it.

“There’s now a level of embarrassment as the Saudis merrily go on their way,” said Rep. Gerald E. Connolly, D-Va., a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

Biden administration officials began planning in the spring for the president to make a summit stop in Saudi Arabia while also visiting Israel over the summer. They knew such a trip would bring criticism.

But some of the president’s aides saw both short- and long-term benefits for the trip and had quietly tried to repair the relationship. They said it was important to work with the kingdom on the Yemen war and Iran, and to expand Israel’s acceptance in the region. More immediately, they believed, the trip could shore up a Saudi commitment to convince OPEC to increase oil production as Russia’s war in Ukraine had led to surging global fuel prices.

Leading proponents of the visit, including Hochstein and Brett McGurk, the top National Security Council official for Middle East policy, met during the spring with Crown Prince Mohammed and his advisers. American officials said that in May, they reached a private oil deal with the Saudis that had two parts.

First, the Saudis would accelerate an OPEC+ production increase of 400,000 barrels per day already planned for September, moving it to July and August. Then the Saudis would get the cartel to announce a further production increase of 200,000 barrels per day for each month from September to December of this year.

On June 2, OPEC+ announced they would move up the production increase scheduled for September — fulfilling the first part of the secret deal.

That same day, the White House announced Biden would soon make a trip to Saudi Arabia.

The price of oil was slowly dropping by the time Biden arrived in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on July 15 for his meeting with Crown Prince Mohammed and other Arab leaders. The image of the American president bumping fists with the Saudi crown prince he once vilified endures from the trip, but behind the scenes, White House officials believed they had at least shored up Saudi commitments on a number of fronts.

Saudis officials seemed eager to demonstrate to the Americans that they had delivered on their commitments — during the summit, they gave members of Biden’s delegation a chart showing oil prices had fallen to $101 per barrel, down from more than $120 per barrel after the war in Ukraine began.

The Americans came away from the summit with the belief that the agreement was on track and that Crown Prince Mohammed was satisfied. But in Riyadh, top Saudi officials were privately telling others that they had no plans for further meaningful oil production increases.

American officials say they believe that Crown Prince Mohammed was particularly influenced by a high-level Sept. 27 meeting in which Prince Abdulaziz, the energy minister, argued that cuts were needed to keep prices from plummeting. The U.S. officials said they learned Prince Abdulaziz asserted that the Saudi government would lack the resources to fund economic diversification projects at the heart of Prince Mohammed’s domestic agenda.

Some U.S. officials believe that the Russians influenced the Saudi about-face, pointing to Prince Abdulaziz’s strong working ties with top Russian officials close to Putin.

Saudi officials vehemently denied marching in lock step with Russia and said they have viewed themselves as a neutral mediator in Russia’s war with Ukraine. Some American officials said that an answer to whether Riyadh has truly cast its lot with Moscow will come on Dec. 4, when OPEC+ is scheduled to meet again.