Workplace Deaths Are Rising. Trump-Era Budget Cuts Could Make It Worse.

In These Times

Workplace Deaths Are Rising. Trump-Era Budget Cuts Could Make It Worse.

By Bruce Vail     June 18, 2018

A worker carries lumber as he builds a new home on January 21, 2015 in Petaluma, California. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images)

In an alarming development in the world of workplace safety, the latest statistics reveal that the number of accidental deaths on the job in America is on the rise, reversing the longer-term trend toward fewer fatal incidents.

The number of deaths hit a total of 5,190 in 2016, up from 4,836 in 2015, according to an April 2018 report by the AFL-CIO. That’s about 14 deaths each day from preventable worker accidents. It’s also the third year in a row that the number has inched up, and the highest death rate since 2010, the labor federation reported.

Workplace safety systems are “definitely in the failure mode,” says Peter Dooley, a consultant with the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health who was worked closely with labor unions over the years. “In the last two years it is getting dramatically worse. It’s just outrageous.”

The precise reasons for the rise are not simply stated, adds Peg Seminario, AFL-CIO’s long-time director of occupational safety and health. Overall patterns such as very high rates of injury in the logging and construction industries are consistent over time, she says, and there is no single employment trend that accounts for the recent rise. “The numbers are actually down in construction, but they are up almost everywhere else,” she says.

Inadequate enforcement of existing safety rules is the most commonly cited explanation for the rise, Seminario tells In These Times. A Jan. 8 report from NBC News estimates that the Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) employs only about 1,000 inspectors to cover all workplaces in America—and that the number of inspectors has declined four percent since President Donald Trump took office. The number of inspectors is far too low to be effective, Seminario suggests, and OSHA has been “under resourced” for years, including during the Obama administration years.

“Construction is a good example. OSHA has a big focus on construction and construction deaths are down. The areas where OSHA has less interest are up,” she says

The figures cited by Seminario and Dooley are taken from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries published annually by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The way the figures are compiled is a problem in itself, Dooley says, because it zealously protects the anonymity of employers. That diverts attention from specific workplace behavior that needs close examination and corrective action to reduce accidental deaths over time, he says.

The National Council’s answer to this problem is to publish its own “Dirty Dozen” list of employers notable for health and safety problems among their workforces. The Council uses a standard of measurement that includes non-fatal injuries and other factors, but the list stands out in that it names some very well-known companies. For example, the online retailer Amazon is on the list because it has seen seven of its warehouse workers killed since 2013. And the largest garbage disposal company in the United States, Waste Management, has had an excessive number of OSHA citations and fines. Other companies on the list are Tesla Motors and Dine Brands Global (owner of IHOP and Applebee’s restaurants).

“There is injustice in the Bureau of Labor Statistics as a totally anonymous database. There is no public record of who is dying and who the employers are,” Dooley says. The information actually does exist deep in the Labor Department files, he adds, but government policy is to keep this information out of public hands, or for use by safety experts. “This needs to be changed,” he says.

Seminario and Dooley agree that the worker safety signals coming from the Trump administration are troubling, even if the statistics are not up-to-date enough to make a direct link to increased workplace deaths. Trump’s budget proposal last year called for a 21 percent cut in Department of Labor spending, and the initial proposal for this year call for a 9 percent cut. Congress pared back last year’s proposed cut, and is expected to do so again this year, but it is clear that current Labor Department officials have no plans to take the initiative against the rise in workplace deaths, Dooley charges.

In issuing its report, the AFL-CIO noted: “The Trump administration has moved to weaken recently issued rules on beryllium and mine examinations and has delayed or abandoned the development of new protections, including regulations on workplace violence, infectious diseases, silica in mining and combustible dust.”

“At the same time, Congress is pushing forward with numerous ‘regulatory reform’ bills that would require review and culling of existing rules, make costs the primary consideration in adopting regulations, and making it virtually impossible to issue new protections.”

The reference to workplace violence represents one of the most troubling statistics buried in the government reports. According to a press release from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Workplace homicides increased by 83 cases to 500 in 2016, and workplace suicides increased by 62 to 291. This is the highest homicide figure since 2010 and the most suicides since the National Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries began reporting data in 1992.”

“It’s a very complicated problem,” observes Seminario. “You can devise safety regulations to avoid common and predictable accidents. But how do you do that with a homicide?”

Bruce Vail is a Baltimore-based freelance writer with decades of experience covering labor and business stories for newspapers, magazines and new media. He was a reporter for Bloomberg BNA’s Daily Labor Report, covering collective bargaining issues in a wide range of industries, and a maritime industry reporter and editor for the Journal of Commerce, serving both in the newspaper’s New York City headquarters and in the Washington, D.C. bureau.

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Farm Bill With Huge Giveaways to Pesticide Industry Passes House

EcoWatch

Farm Bill With Huge Giveaways to Pesticide Industry Passes House

 Olivia Rosane      June 22, 2018

A farm bill that opponents say would harm endangered species, land conservation efforts, small-scale farmers and food-stamp recipients passed the U.S. House of Representatives 213 to 211, with every House Democrat and 20 Republicans voting against it, The Center for Biological Diversity reported.

similar farm bill failed to pass the House in May when it was caught in the crossfire over immigration reform, but the new bill retains its most controversial provisions.

The bill, officially titled H.R. 2, the Agriculture and Nutrition Act of 2018, is a major win for the pesticide industry, which spent $43 million on lobbying this Congressional season. It would ax a requirement that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service assess a pesticide’s impact on endangered species before the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approves it and relax the Clean Water Act’s provision that anyone releasing pesticides into waterways obtain a permit.

“This farm bill should be called the Extinction Act of 2018,” Center for Biological Diversity Government Affairs Director Brett Hartl said. “If it becomes law, this bill will be remembered for generations as the hammer that drove the final nail into the coffin of some of America’s most vulnerable species.”

The bill would also be devastating for land conservation efforts. It would allow logging and mining in Alaskan forests, including the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest, the Tongass, and get rid of the Conservation Stewardship program, which funds farmers who engage in conservation on their land, according to Environment America.

Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii, who opposed the bill, also said it favored agribusiness over ordinary farmers.

“The Farm Bill rewards mega-agribusinesses and Wall Street, while slashing funding for nutrition, rural agriculture development, and clean energy programs, cutting key agricultural research and development efforts critically needed to help fight invasive species like the coffee berry borer, macadamia felted coccid, and more,” she said in a statement reported by Big Island Now.

The bill is also controversial because of proposed changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly referred to as food stamps, Reuters reported. House Republicans have pushed for measures that would increase the number of recipients who must work in order to receive food stamps, including limiting states’ abilities to waive those requirements in areas with poor economies.

Reuters noted that the Senate version of the 2018 farm bill does not include any changes to the SNAP program and that the House bill is unlikely to pass into law because of those provisions.

Environmental groups also prefer the Senate version of the bill.

“House Republican leaders have decided to gamble with farmers’ crucial government support by attaching dangerous policy riders to the farm bill. These would put Americans’ health at risk, pollute our waters, and imperil bees, monarch butterflies, and other bedrock species,” Federal Affairs Director at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) Brian Siu said in a statement.

“For the most part, the Senate is pursuing a serious, bipartisan measure that would support farmers and those needing help buying food. We look forward to working with lawmakers to help pursue that approach,” Siu said.

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Deep-Water Drilling Is Back

Bloomberg

Deep-Water Drilling Is Back

With Trump set to revive offshore exploration, Big Oil is developing cheaper ways to drill.

By Kevin Crowley    June 21, 2018

Pipes and mooring lines rise from the Gulf of Mexico beneath Chevron Corp.’s Jack/St. Malo deep-water oil platform about 200 miles off the coast of Louisiana on May 18, 2018. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

On a hot, sunny May afternoon, flying fish leap out of the Gulf of Mexico’s brilliant blue waters near the steel legs of a Chevron Corp. oil platform, pursued by deep-water predators. “Is that a shark chasing them?” asks barge supervisor Jamie Gobert, peering over a rail. “Think it’s yellow-fin tuna or maybe dolphin fish,” says Emile Boudreaux, his colleague.

Typically in the region, seeing so many deep-water creatures converging on a single spot would be unusual. But these denizens of the Gulf have a road map of sorts to Chevron’s huge Jack/St. Malo platform, a floating steel structure the size of three football fields about 200 miles off the Louisiana coast. The fish are following giant underwater pipelines that carry crude from three oil fields about 15 miles away in different directions from the Jack/St. Malo, like tentacles of an octopus. Unlike old-style platforms that suck oil from a field directly below, this web like arrangement lets the Jack/St. Malo pump more than 3,000 gallons of crude a minute from the trio of fields.

The three-for-one hub is part of a wave of innovation by oil majors including Chevron, BP Plc, and Royal Dutch Shell Plc that’s allowing deep-water production in the Gulf to bounce back from disasters both environmental (BP’s Deepwater Horizon spill in 2010) and financial (the oil price).

                                               Oil production equipment onboard Chevron’s Jack/St. Malo platform. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

While U.S. shale production has been dominating markets, a quiet revolution has been taking place offshore. The combination of new technology and smarter design will end much of the overspending that’s made large troves of subsea oil barely profitable to produce, industry executives say. New projects are targeting costs of about $35 to $40 a barrel, which would compete with the lowest-cost shale assets. Cutting costs lets operators tap oil reserves that were previously uneconomic to exploit.

The Gulf of Mexico has been the vanguard of global experimentation for offshore oil, and success this time could encourage more drilling in the world’s hot new oil basins in countries including Brazil, Guyana, Mexico, and Mozambique. Further on, it could even encourage more U.S. offshore production, if President Trump is able to fulfill his plan to open much of the nation’s coastline to fresh exploration. “In the past, a lot of the cost of development has been new technology,” says Jeff Shellebarger, president of Chevron’s North American division. “With the types of reservoirs we’re drilling today, most of that learning curve is behind us. Now we can keep those costs pretty competitive.”

Two things drive drilling: crude prices and production costs. In the 2000s, higher prices spurred much of the growth in the Gulf. Operators fixated on building technically advanced production platforms that were the biggest, the deepest, and able to handle the highest-pressure wells—at almost whatever the cost. They demanded customized equipment including valves and pumps, even when standard models with practically the same specifications were cheaper. Shell had an encyclopedia of 100,000 engineering standards. In some lines of business, it has cut that back 95 percent, says Harry Brekelmans, Shell’s projects and technology director.

Complexity and cost didn’t seem to matter much when oil averaged more than $100 a barrel from 2011 to 2014. But when prices plunged to a 12-year low of $28 a barrel in 2016, the biggest drop in a generation, many projects and companies were generating big losses. “We knew there was incredible waste, but 2014 was the trigger,” Brekelmans says. “We knew there was no way we could put forward a project in the same way again.”

Platform supply vessel Kobe Chouest anchored alongside Jack/St. Malo. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

Take BP’s Mad Dog 2, designed in 2012 to be the biggest platform in the world. The initial plan was so large and complicated that a Finnish shipyard would need to be expanded to build it. The platform’s projected cost was $20 billion. BP executives realized that was outlandish, even before crude prices dropped. So they redesigned the platform, stripping out features and cutting the bill to $9 billion.

BP, the Gulf’s biggest operator, now wants to do more exploration around its existing platforms and pipe oil back to them, as is done at Jack/St. Malo, rather than build expensive new floating hubs. This approach is possible because the range of the so-called tiebacks—the pipes that carry the crude from the drill site to the platform—has increased markedly in the past few years due to new subsea pump technology. Chevron expects it will soon be able to use tiebacks as long as 60 miles, almost four times the length of those at Jack/St. Malo.

If an oil field is in range, tiebacks can save about $12 a barrel compared with the cost of building a new platform, according to researcher Wood Mackenzie Ltd. “The philosophy is around infrastructure-led exploration, maintaining capacity at those hubs and filling them up,” says Starlee Sykes, BP’s regional president for the Gulf of Mexico and Canada. “We’re focused on using technology to be safer and more efficient rather than to build the biggest ever.”

Chevron and BP have cut operating expenses in the Gulf by half since 2013, the companies say, by a combination of using standardized equipment, applying better technology, eliminating jobs, and selling higher-cost assets. Shell has also reduced spending substantially, Brekelmans says.

Chevron workers examine hydrocarbon samples on Jack/St. Malo. Photographer: Luke Sharrett/Bloomberg

“People ask about the big hitter in terms of cost savings,” says Stephen Conner, general manager of Chevron’s Gulf of Mexico operations. “But in truth, it’s the one thousand little things we’ve done.”

Analysts remain skeptical about whether the industry is truly reformed. As oil bounces back—it’s up 62 percent in the past year—costs may rise again, especially as drilling and construction suppliers seek to increase their own prices, says William Turner, a Wood Mackenzie senior research analyst. “Margins for servicers are just not sustainable,” he says. “I see costs creeping up, albeit from a low base.”

It might seem unnecessary for companies to put so much money and effort into risky offshore projects when oil from onshore shale production is booming. Output from the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico will more than double over the next five years, to 5.4 million barrels a day, more than that produced by any OPEC member other than Saudi Arabia, according to IHS Markit Ltd.

But some companies such as BP lack significant shale assets, so they don’t have a choice. Even for those that do like Chevron, the advantage of drilling offshore is the sheer volume of oil that can be produced. In the Permian, a top-performing well produces about 2,000 barrels of oil daily for a few weeks before declining sharply. In the Gulf, fields can produce as much as 100,000 barrels a day for decades.

Activity in the region is picking up. Shell in April said it will build a deep-water platform named Vito, a project that had to be re-engineered after the 2014 oil-price crash. Chevron’s Big Foot is expecting to produce its first oil by the end of the year. BP’s Mad Dog 2 is also in development mode.

Not surprisingly, BP, Shell, and Chevron all support Trump’s plan to open up more than 90 percent of the U.S. outer continental shelf to drilling. But even if the administration is able to overcome strong environmental opposition by most of the coastal states, it would likely be the mid-2020s before any exploration activity could begin.

On Jack/St. Malo, Gobert and Boudreaux are showing off valves, pumps, enormous lifting chains, pipelines, safety choke points, and a three-turbine generator system that could power 58,000 houses, all floating on its giant frame. Taken together, the equipment cost $7.5 billion, and that figure excludes day-to-day running costs, taxes, and royalty payments. What makes it worth all the effort? Gobert watches as a colleague pours a sample of oil from a tap, as if from a beer keg, connected to a maze of pipes extending 14-feet high. “We call this the cash register,” he says.

Bottom Line – Rising production of oil from shale fields has reinvigorated the U.S. oil industry. But new technology to make offshore drilling more economical could have a longer-lasting impact.

Trump scraps Obama policy on protecting oceans, Great Lakes

Associated Press

Trump scraps Obama policy on protecting oceans, Great Lakes

John Flesher, Associated Press       June 21, 2018

In this April 21, 2010, file photo, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig burns in the Gulf of Mexico following an explosion that killed 11 workers and caused the worst offshore oil spill in the nation’s history. President Donald Trump is throwing out a policy devised by his predecessor for protecting U.S. oceans and the Great Lakes, replacing it with a new approach that emphasizes use of the waters to promote economic growth. President Barack Obama issued his policy in 2010 after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Trump says it was too bureaucratic. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert, File)

Traverse City , Mich. (AP) — President Donald Trump has thrown out a policy devised by his predecessor to protect U.S. oceans and the Great Lakes, replacing it with a new approach that emphasizes use of the waters to promote economic growth.

Trump revoked an executive order issued by President Barack Obama in 2010 following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The largest offshore oil spill in U.S. history, it killed 11 workers and spewed millions of gallons of crude that harmed marine wildlife, fouled more than 1,300 miles of shoreline and cost the tourism and fishing industries hundreds of millions of dollars.

Obama said the spill underscored the vulnerability of marine environments. He established a council to promote conservation and sustainable use of the waters.

In his order this week, Trump did not mention the Gulf spill. He said he was “rolling back excessive bureaucracy created by the previous administration” and depicted the Obama council as bloated, with 27 departments and agencies and over 20 committees, subcommittees and working groups.

The Republican president said he was creating a smaller Ocean Policy Committee while eliminating “duplicative” regional planning bodies created under Obama.

But he said federal agencies could participate in regional partnerships formed by states. His administration has encouraged a “cooperative federalism” approach that shifts more responsibility to state governments.

Trump’s order downplays environmental protection, saying the change would ensure that regulations and management decisions don’t get in the way of responsible use by industries that “employ millions of Americans, advance ocean science and technology, feed the American people, transport American goods, expand recreational opportunities and enhance America’s energy security.”

In another reversal of Obama policy, Trump earlier this year called for opening most coastal waters to offshore oil and gas drilling, drawing fierce opposition from many coastal states. His administration also is stepping up federal leases for offshore wind energy development.

“Domestic energy production from federal waters strengthens the nation’s security and reduces reliance on imported energy,” Trump said in his order, which also mentioned shipping, fishing and recreation as among industries standing to benefit from his plan.

The order drew praise from a group representing offshore energy producers.

Jack Belcher, managing director of the pro-industry National Ocean Policy Coalition, said the new approach would remove “a significant cloud of uncertainty” for marine commerce.

Environmentalists said it erases a national mandate to improve ocean health.

“In another attempt to reverse progress made under President Obama, the Trump administration is recklessly tossing aside responsible ocean management and stewardship,” said Arian Rubio, legislative associate for the League of Conservation Voters.

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, a Republican and chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, said Trump’s approach would “help the health of our oceans and ensure local communities impacted by ocean policy have a seat at the table.”

Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, an Arizona Democrat and ranking member of the committee, demanded a hearing and accused Trump of “unilaterally throwing out” years of conservation work.

Associated Press reporters Patrick Whittle in Portland, Maine, and Matthew Daly in Washington, D.C., contributed to this story.

World’s Plastic Waste Problem Now Predicted to Reach 111 Million Metric Tonnes by 2030

EcoWatch

World’s Plastic Waste Problem Now Predicted to Reach 111 Million Metric Tonnes by 2030

Lorraine Chow        June 21, 2018

Mountains of plastic waste are building up around the globe after China implemented a ban on other countries’ trash.

By 2030, an estimated 111 million metric tons of single-use drink bottles, food containers and other plastic junk will be displaced because of China’s new policy, according to a new paper from University of Georgia researchers, who cited UN global trade data for their study.

Before the ban, China reigned as the world’s largest importer of plastic leftovers. The paper, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, said that China has imported 106 million metric tons of plastic waste for recycling since 1992, making up 45.1 percent of all cumulative imports.

But last year, China announced it no longer wanted to take in other countries’ trash, so it could focus on its own pollution problems.

The unexpected policy shift has left exporters in the U.S., CanadaIrelandGermany and other European countries scrambling for solutions for their trash. The U.S. alone had sent 13.2 million tons scrap paper and 1.42 million tons of scrap plastics to China’s recycling centers annually.

Western states, which heavily relied on Chinese recycling plants, have seen bales of mixed plastics and paper building up in recycling centers, the New York Times reported last month. In some cities, the pile-up has even resulted in recyclables being directly sent to landfills.

Some of this waste is now being sent to Vietnam, Malaysia and Thailand, but experts have said that these countries might not be able to fill the void left by China, CNBC News reported.

Amy Brooks, the first author on the current study and a doctoral student in engineering at the University of Georgia, suggested that countries need to be better at managing and recycling their own waste.

“This is a wake-up call. Historically, we’ve been depending on China to take in this recycled waste and now they are saying no,” she told the Associated Press. “That waste has to be managed, and we have to manage it properly.”

More than 8.3 billion metric tons of new plastics have been generated, distributed and discarded as of 2017. Much of that material ends up in our oceans. Every year humans send an estimated 8 million metric tons of plastic out to sea. If plastic consumption continues at this rate, we are on pace to fill oceans with more plastic than there are fish by 2050.

As the researchers of the paper concluded, “Bold global ideas and actions for reducing quantities of non-recyclable materials, redesigning products, and funding domestic plastic waste management are needed.”

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Pruitt Grants Oklahoma Leniency to Dispose of Toxic Coal Ash Without Federal Oversight

EcoWatch

Pruitt Grants Oklahoma Leniency to Dispose of Toxic Coal Ash Without Federal Oversight

Olivia Rosane     June 19, 2018

The collapsed coal ash impoundment and closed power plant at Dan River Steam Station (Duke Energy), Eden, North Carolina. The impoundment failure caused the 2014 Dan River coal ash spill. The U.S. EPA.

On Monday, Oklahoma became the first state to be granted a permit from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to dispose of its own coal ashThe Associated Press reported.

The move displaces the federal government as the body responsible for coal ash disposal in EPA head Scott Pruitt’s home state. Coal ash is the residue left over from burning coal for power that often contaminates groundwater. It is a change that industry has lobbied for and environmental groups have opposed.

States have demonstrated that “they don’t care about the health and safety of communities near coal ash dumps,” Earthjustice attorney Lisa Evans told The Associated Press.

About 100 million tons of coal ash is produced by U.S. plants every year, often left in disposal ponds that leak into groundwater, contaminating it with pollutants like arsenic and radium. Tests ordered by the EPA this spring of groundwater around plants in various states found elevated pollution levels, according to The Associated Press.

Despite this, “industry has asked for leniency, less stringency. That’s the direction they’re going,” Evans said.

According to documents obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, switching coal ash oversight to states was part of an “action plan” proposed by coal industry executive Robert Murray this spring to Pruitt and other officials in the Trump administration.

Pruitt defended the decision, saying in a statement that the move empowered “those who are best positioned to oversee coal ash management—the officials who have intimate knowledge of the facilities and the environment in their state.”

Pruitt also moved to weaken Obama-era coal ash disposal regulations in March, but the rule change allowing states to control coal ash disposal was actually passed by Congress and signed by former President Barack Obama in 2016, according to NPR. The law said that state rules had to be “as protective as” federal guidelines.

“I am pleased that Oklahoma is the first state in the nation to receive approval of its Coal Combustion Residuals permit program. We actually incorporated the federal rule into our state permitting rules program over a year ago,” Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) Executive Director Scott Thompson said in an EPA press release about the decision.

But at a hearing in February, Oklahoma environmental groups said the DEQ was not prepared to adequately regulate coal ash.

“The DEQ rules are weaker than the EPA rules,” Oklahoma Grand Riverkeeper and activist Earl Hatley told NPR in February. “This is just a boon for industry to do what they want.”

Waterkeeper Alliance senior attorney Kelly Foster further expressed concerns that the DEQ plan did not provide enough information on how companies would be made to comply with regulations and how the DEQ would take on new responsibilities with existing resources.

Georgia and Texas are following Oklahoma in taking steps to control coal ash disposal, The Associated Press reported.

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House GOP 2019 budget calls for deep Medicare, Medicaid spending cuts

The Hill

House GOP 2019 budget calls for deep Medicare, Medicaid spending cuts

By Niv Elis and Peter Sullivan        June 19, 2018

Getty Images

House Republicans offered a budget proposal on Tuesday that would cut mandatory spending by $5.4 billion over a decade, including $537 billion in cuts to Medicare and $1.5 trillion in cuts to Medicaid and other health programs.

On Medicare, the budget would move towards a system of private health insurance plans competing with one other, rather than the current open-ended, government-provided Medicare system.

On Medicaid, the budget would impose new caps that could lead to cuts in payments over time.
The budget also sets up a fast-track process known as reconciliation that could allow ObamaCare repeal to pass without Democratic votes in the Senate.

But that is a long way off at this point.

The Senate would have to adopt a budget as well to unlock the process, and GOP leaders have indicated they have moved on from ObamaCare repeal for now.

The budget also proposes $2.6 trillion in reductions to other mandatory spending programs, including welfare and other anti-poverty programs.

“Despite an extraordinary past and a booming economy thanks to tax reform, there are real fiscal challenges casting a shadow of doubt on the nation’s future, including $21 trillion of debt that is rapidly on the rise. We must overcome the challenges,” said House Budget Committee Chairman Steve Womack (R-Ark.).

The budget, which will be marked up on Wednesday and Thursday, is largely a GOP messaging document. Congress is legally required to approve a budget plan by April, which then kicks off a process of appropriating 12 spending bills.

A separate spending deal reached in February largely governs the next year’s budget, and until this week it was unclear whether the House Budget Committee would even bother with a budget plan. There is still no word from the Senate Budget Committee on whether it will present its own document.

The new budget calls for a precipitous drop in non-defense spending over the next decade, even as defense spending rises.

The plan sticks to the 2019 discretionary spending levels agreed in the budget deal, but then charts an aggressive course to balance over the course of a decade.

Non-defense discretionary spending, which covers most of the federal government’s activities, would drop from the $597 billion to $555 billion by 2028. Meanwhile, defense spending would climb from $647 billion this year to $736 billion in 2028.

Democrats lambasted the plan for unrealistic assumptions, including the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, a goal the GOP has thus far failed to achieve despite numerous efforts.

“The 2019 Republican budget scraps any sense of responsibility to the American people and any obligation to being honest. Its repeal of the Affordable Care Act and extreme cuts to health care, retirement security, anti-poverty programs, education, infrastructure, and other critical investments are real and will inflict serious harm on American families,” said Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), the ranking member on the House Budget committee.

He also pointed to the GOP tax law, which the Congressional Budget Office projected could cost as much as $1.9 trillion over a decade, as a driver of deficits.

To achieve balance, the budget plan assumes that the economy will consistently grow at 2.6 percent a year over the next decade, far higher than the CBO estimate of 1.8 percent a year, but lower than the administration’s rosy 3 percent outlook.

Budget watchers say that the plan is not realistic.

“While the budget resolution calls for $8.1 trillion of deficit reduction relative to CBO’s baseline, most of these savings come from rosy economic assumptions or unreconciled and often unrealistic spending cuts,” said Maya MacGuineas, president of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget

“The budget also fails to account for the costs of extending the recent tax cuts or replacing the Affordable Care Act, despite continued efforts to enact these policies,” she added.

A separate call for $302 billion in savings through the reconciliation process, which requires authorizing committees in Congress to reduce deficits, “would represent a step in the right direction,” she continued.

Alzheimer’s disease may be triggered by herpes virus, scientists suspect

The Telegraph – Health

Alzheimer’s disease may be triggered by herpes virus, scientists suspect

Sarah Knapton, The Telegraph              June 21, 2018

Alzheimer’s disease may be triggered by the herpes virus, a new study suggests, leading to hopes that antiviral medication could help prevent dementia.

Around 850,000 people are living with dementia in Britain, and the majority of people have Alzheimer’s which occurs when sticky plaques of amyloid build up in the brain, killing brain cells.

But new research has found that the brains of people who have died of Alzhiemer’s have almost double the level of HHV-6A and HHV-7 herpes virus as non-diseased brains, suggesting it is playing a role in the condition.

Researchers in the US believe that the disease may trigger an immune ‘cascade’ which encourages the growth of amyloid plaques.

It raises hopes that cases could be prevented through antiviral drugs.

How herpes in the brain could trigger Alzheimer’s

The team did not set out to study the impact of herpes, but were looking for anything which might be different in six key brain regions in people with Alzheimer’s compared to those who were dementia free.

They began by sequencing DNA from the dead patients to find out information about inherited genes, followed by their RNA to find out how those genes were expressed.

“We didn’t go looking for viruses, but viruses sort of screamed out at us,” said lead author assistant research professor Ben Readhead of Arizona State University.

“We saw a key virus, HHV 6A, regulating the expression of quite a few Alzheimer’s risk genes and genes known to regulate the processing of amyloid, a key ingredient in Alzheimer’s neuropathology.”

The study authors say the findings suggests that Alzheimer’s could be ‘collateral damage’ caused by the brain’s response to the virus.

Both HHV 6A, and 7 are common herpes viruses and most people are exposed to them early in life. It is different from the Herpes-simplex virus which causes cold sores and genital herpes.

The level of the virus in the brain also correlated with clinical dementia scores before death. Those with more viral DNA performed worse in tests.

“I don’t think we can answer whether herpes viruses are a primary cause of Alzheimer’s disease,” said study senior author, Dr Joel Dudley, Director of the Institute for Next Generation Healthcare at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. 

“”But what’s clear is that they’re perturbing and participating in networks that directly underlie Alzheimer’s.

“This study represents a significant advancement in our understanding of the plausibility of the pathogen hypothesis of Alzheimer’s

“If it becomes evident that specific viral species directly contribute to an individual’s risk of developing Alzheimer’s or their rate of progression once diagnosed, then this would offer a new conceptual framework for understanding the emergence and evolution of Alzheimer’s at individual, as well as population, levels.”

Commenting on the study Prof Clive Ballard, Professor of Age-Related Diseases, University of Exeter Medical School, said: “This new study is a vital step forward as it highlights specific disease related mechanisms.

“This now gives the potential to investigate the impact of viruses more directly in experimental studies, so that we can really understand whether there may be important implications for treatment or prevention.”

Prof Ruth Itzhaki, Professor Emeritus of Molecular Neurobiology at the University of Manchester, and Honorary Senior Research Fellow at the University of Oxford, added: “A picture is building up showing strong links between herpes viruses and the likelihood of developing Alzheimer’s disease.

“We now need more research to establish whether these viruses are causally linked to Alzheimer’s, and whether using that information we might be able to develop treatments.”

The research was published in the journal Neuron.

 Video: These Lifestyle Changes Can Reduce Risk of Alzheimer’s

blob:https://www.today.com/ccfd87f8-0b78-48c5-b2cc-dcf27724e0d5

How to prevent Alzheimer’s: Follow these 4 tips from doctors

Alzheimer’s can start formulating in your brain as early as your 30s. Follow these tips to change your lifestyle for better brain health.
by Robert Powell and Gabrielle Frank /  / Source: TODAY
Most people think of Alzheimer’s as an old person’s disease, but doctors say it can actually start formulating in your brain as early as your 30’s. While that might be a scary thought, there are a few lifestyle changes you can make now that experts believe could impact your risk of developing the disease.

“One out of three cases of Alzheimer’s may be preventable if that person does everything right,” explained Dr. Richard Isaacson, director of the Alzheimer’s Prevention Clinic at Weill Cornell & New York-Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City.

These lifestyle changes can reduce your risk of getting Alzheimer’s

Isaacson stressed how important it is to make changes now: “20 to 30 years is ample time to make brain-healthy choices.” So what can you do?

1. EXERCISE REGULARLY, AT A HIGH INTENSITY.

“Exercise can protect against Alzheimer’s because it not only increases blood flow to the brain, but it loosens up that amyloid plaque, the bad sticky stuff that gets caught up and gunked up in the brain of a person with Alzheimer’s disease,” noted Isaacson.

Any exercise helps, but experts recommend getting at least three hours of rigorous activity a week. Ideally, that would be two cardio workouts and one strength-training session.

2. GET AT LEAST 7.5 HOURS OF QUALITY SLEEP EVERY NIGHT.

When you sleep, the brain can clean out the damaging amyloid plaques.

“Turn off the electronics, no bright lights from the screens, no texting, no emails. Have a quiet, dark room. And clear your mind,” Isaacson advised.

3. EAT RIGHT AND EAT LESS.

Avoid sugar and processed foods, and you might want to switch to a Mediterranean diet. The brain shrinks as you age, but a study published last year in the journal Neurology found people in their mid-70’s who consumed a Mediterranean diet (more fruits, veggies, olive oil, and less meat and cheese) lost less brain mass than people who ate a diet more typical of their country, Scotland. A bigger brain later in life is beneficial and could protect from diseases like Alzheimer’s.

Experts say the best brain diet is comprised of foods like leafy greens, whole fruits and vegetables. While you shouldn’t obsess over counting calories, try to aim for 2,100 calories a day.

4. GET YOUR BLOOD CHECKED EVERY YEAR.

“Having high blood pressure, high cholesterol and diabetes is a way towards Alzheimer’s disease … Know your blood pressure, know your fasting blood sugar, know what your cholesterol is,” Isaacson said.

Keep your brain challenged, TODAY correspondent Maria Shriver noted. Shriver recommended the website BrainHQ, which features many brain exercises that have been linked to dramatically lower rates of dementia in seniors.