Business – Finance – Page 31

House GOP’s Israel Aid Plan Would Add Billions to Deficit: CBO

The Fiscal Times

House GOP’s Israel Aid Plan Would Add Billions to Deficit: CBO

Yuval Rosenberg – November 1, 2023

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s plan to cut IRS funding to pay for the cost of a $14.3 billion aid package to Israel would add billions to the deficit over the next 10 years, according to a new estimate from the Congressional Budget Office.

The nonpartisan budget scorekeeper projected that rescinding more than $14 billion in IRS funding as the House GOP proposes to do would scale back the tax agency’s enforcement and consequently decrease revenues by $26.8 billion from 2024 through 2033. The revenue loss would far outweigh the spending cuts, resulting in a net increase in the deficit of $12.5 billion from the IRS portion of the plan — and the aid to Israel would bring the total cost of the bill to nearly $27 billion.

IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel said Tuesday that the cuts to his budget in the House bill would increase the deficit by far more, estimating it would add $90 billion over 10 years — a figure that The Washington Post reports is “based on IRS modeling that shows a 6-to-1 ratio of money spent on tax enforcement to revenue collected.”

House plan is DOA in the Senate: The CBO score was seen as a blow to the House plan, particularly given that if the new speaker had not included the IRS cuts, the aid for Israel would likely pass the House with strong bipartisan support, potentially jamming the Senate and lawmakers who favor packaging aid to Israel with more money to support Ukraine in its war against Russia.

Johnson dismissed the CBO estimate, telling reporters: “We don’t put much credence in what the CBO says.”

In truth, the CBO report is likely little more than a formality at this point since Johnson’s plan — if it can even pass the narrowly divided House — would be doomed in the Senate, where Democrats oppose the IRS funding cuts and are looking to combine aid to Israel with the Ukraine assistance and other emergency funding requested by President Joe Biden.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday called the House plan “totally unserious and woefully inadequate” and criticized its fiscal effects. “Here, the House is talking about needing a pay-for to reduce the deficit – and they put in a provision that actually increases the deficit. Why? Because they don’t want their super-rich, mega-wealthy friends to be audited by the IRS, like every other citizen is,” Schumer said. “So the House GOP proposal is not going to go anywhere. It’s dead before it even is voted on.”

Schumer urged Johnson to start over in a more bipartisan fashion, but the speaker reportedly told a gathering of Senate Republicans that military aid to Israel must move as a standalone bill because a larger package cannot pass with the support of the House Republican majority. Johnson reportedly also told the senators that he backs more aid to Ukraine but that it would need to be paired with reforms to border security. The speaker, relatively unknown to his Senate counterparts, reportedly also said that he’s focused on passing what he can through the House and would worry later about reconciling those bills with Senate versions.

With the November 17 deadline to avoid a government shutdown approaching, Johnson also said he will look to pass a stopgap spending bill that runs through mid-January rather than the mid-April timeframe he had previously said was also a possibility.

Biden threatens a veto: The White House has made clear that the House plan is unacceptable to President Joe Biden, who would veto it if it somehow lands on his desk.

In a lengthy and forceful statement issued Tuesday evening, the White House slammed the GOP plan as unnecessarily politicizing aid to Israel, excluding essential humanitarian assistance and failing to meet the urgent needs of the moment. “It inserts partisanship into support for Israel, making our ally a pawn in our politics, at a moment we must stand together. It denies humanitarian assistance to vulnerable populations around the world, including Palestinian civilians, which is a moral and strategic imperative. And by requiring offsets for this critical security assistance, it sets a new and dangerous precedent by conditioning assistance for Israel, further politicizing our support and treating one ally differently from others,” the White House said. “This bill is bad for Israel, for the Middle East region, and for our own national security.”

The bottom line: Even with the new CBO score, Johnson and House Republicans plan on passing their Israel aid bill on Friday, setting a confrontational tone for the series of budget battles that lie ahead — and making clear that they have priorities that take precedence over deficit reduction.

US EPA needs to phase out food waste from landfills by 2040 -local officials

Reuters

US EPA needs to phase out food waste from landfills by 2040 -local officials

Leah Douglas – October 31, 2023

FILE PHOTO: Workers use heavy machinery to move trash and waste at the Frank R. Bowerman landfill in California

(Reuters) – A group of local U.S. government officials from 18 states on Tuesday urged the Environmental Protection Agency to phase out food waste disposal in landfills by 2040 to cut emissions of the potent greenhouse gas methane.

Food waste causes 58% of the methane emissions that come from landfills, the EPA said in an Oct. 19 report that calculated those emissions for the first time. The U.S. is lagging on a goal to halve food waste by 2030, and the EPA has been criticized for under-investing in the issue.

“Without fast action on methane, local governments will increasingly face the impacts of warming temperatures, sea level rise, and extreme weather events,” the officials, including the mayors of Seattle and Minneapolis, said in a joint letter to the agency.

They also asked the agency to update landfill standards to better detect and mitigate methane leaks.

More than one third of food produced in the U.S. is wasted, and methane emissions from landfilled food waste are growing, totaling more than 55 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent in 2020, according to the EPA.

Landfills are responsible for about 14% of U.S. methane emissions, according to the EPA. Methane is 28 times stronger than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas over a 100-year period.

Some cities and municipalities have voluntary household composting programs for food waste. Residents of New York City, which was not among the cities that signed the letter to EPA, will soon be required to separate food scraps from the rest of their household trash.

The EPA provides resources on its website for household food waste management and has a program for businesses to commit to cutting their food waste, though the agency does not verify their progress.

Food waste will be a priority at this year’s United Nations climate conference, to be held at the end of November in the United Arab Emirates.

(Reporting by Leah Douglas; Editing by Marguerita Choy)

Americans are still putting way too much food into landfills. Local officials seek EPA’s help

Associated Press

Americans are still putting way too much food into landfills. Local officials seek EPA’s help

Melina Walling – October 31, 2023

Shredded organic materials are piled up before being taken to a anaerobic digester at a GreenWaste Zanker Resource Recovery Facility in San Jose, Calif., Friday, Oct. 27, 2023. For the first time since the 1990s, the EPA updated its ranking of preferred strategies for waste reduction, ranging from preventing wasted food altogether (by not producing or buying it in the first place) to composting or anaerobic digestion, a process by which food waste can be turned into energy in the form of biogas. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

A truck loaded with organic material exits a GreenWaste Zanker Resource Recovery Facility with the generators that will convert biogas into electricity at rear in San Jose, Calif., Friday, Oct. 27, 2023. For the first time since the 1990s, the EPA updated its ranking of preferred strategies for waste reduction, ranging from preventing wasted food altogether (by not producing or buying it in the first place) to composting or anaerobic digestion, a process by which food waste can be turned into energy in the form of biogas. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

Generators that will convert biogas into electricity sit at a GreenWaste Zanker Resource Recovery Facility in San Jose, Calif., Friday, Oct. 27, 2023. For the first time since the 1990s, the EPA updated its ranking of preferred strategies for waste reduction, ranging from preventing wasted food altogether (by not producing or buying it in the first place) to composting or anaerobic digestion, a process by which food waste can be turned into energy in the form of biogas. (AP Photo/Jeff Chiu)

CHICAGO (AP) — More than one-third of the food produced in the U.S. is never eaten. Much of it ends up in landfills, where it generates tons of methane that hastens climate change. That’s why more than 50 local officials signed onto a letter Tuesday calling on the Environmental Protection Agency to help municipal governments cut food waste in their communities.

The letter came on the heels of two recent reports from the EPA on the scope of America’s food waste problem and the damage that results from it. The local officials pressed the agency to expand grant funding and technical help for landfill alternatives. They also urged the agency to update landfill standards to require better prevention, detection and reduction of methane emissions, something scientists already have the technology to do but which can be challenging to implement since food waste breaks down and starts generating methane quickly.

Tackling food waste is a daunting challenge that the U.S. has taken on before. In 2015, the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the EPA set a goal of cutting food waste in half by 2030, but the country has made little progress, said Claudia Fabiano, who works on food waste management for the EPA.

“We’ve got a long way to go,” Fabiano said.

Researchers say the EPA reports provide sorely needed information. One report found that 58% of methane emissions from landfills come from food waste, a major issue because methane is responsible for about a quarter of global warming and has significantly more warming potential than carbon dioxide.

With the extent of the problem clearly defined, some elected leaders and researchers alike hope to take action. But they say it will take not just investment of resources but also a major mindset shift from the public. Farmers may need to change some practices, manufacturers will need to rethink how they package and market goods, and individuals need to find ways to keep food from going to waste.

So for the first time since the 1990s, the EPA updated its ranking of preferred strategies for waste reduction, ranging from preventing wasted food altogether (by not producing or buying it in the first place) to composting or anaerobic digestion, a process by which food waste can be turned into biogas inside a reactor. Prevention remains the top strategy, but the new ranking includes more nuances comparing the options so communities can decide how to prioritize their investments.

But reducing waste requires a big psychological change and lifestyle shift from individuals no matter what. Researchers say households are responsible for at least 40% of food waste in the U.S.

It’s a more urgent problem than ever, said Weslynne Ashton, a professor of environmental management and sustainability at the Illinois Institute of Technology who was not involved with the EPA reports. Americans have been conditioned to expect abundance at grocery stores and on their plates, and it’s expensive to pull all that food out of the waste stream.

“I think it is possible to get zero organic waste into landfills,” Ashton said. “But it means that we need an infrastructure to enable that in different locations within cities and more rural regions. It means we need incentives both for households as well as for commercial institutions.”

With the problem clearly defined and quantified, it remains to be seen whether communities and states will get extra help or guidance from the federal level — and how much change they can make either way. The EPA has recently channeled some money from the Inflation Reduction Act toward supporting recycling, which did include some funding for organics waste, but those are relatively new programs.

Some local governments have been working on this issue for a while. California began requiring every jurisdiction to provide organic waste collection services starting in 2022. But others don’t have as much of a head start. Chicago, for instance, just launched a city-wide composting pilot program two weeks ago that set up free food waste drop-off points around the city. But prospective users have to transport their food scraps themselves.

Ning Ai, an associate professor of urban planning and policy at the University of Illinois Chicago, said the report could be bolstered by more specific information about how different communities can adopt localized solutions, since preventing food waste might look different in rural and urban areas or in different parts of the country. But she was also impressed that the report highlighted tradeoffs of environmental impacts between air, water and land, something she said is not often as aggressively documented.

“These two reports, as well as some of the older ones, that definitely shows up as a boost to the national momentum to waste reduction,” said Ai, who was not involved with the EPA’s research.

Read more of AP’s climate coverage at http://www.apnews.com/climate-and-environment

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

SC wastes more food than any other state, new study shows. Here’s why and how much

The Island Packet

SC wastes more food than any other state, new study shows. Here’s why and how much

Sarah Claire McDonald – November 1, 2023

With the coming months bringing seasonal food fads and festive holidays, food waste has the potential to be much more prominent around this time of year.

After Cherry Digital, a communications agency, surveyed 3,200 Americans to find out how much was thrown away this past year, it was discovered that U.S. households waste about $907 worth of food annually.

Food waste comes in to Re-Soil, near Elgin, and is composted over a 15 day period.

As for South Carolina, the reported estimation was much higher than the nation’s.

Residents in households around the Palmetto State were reported to waste over $1,300 worth of food each year, according to survey data from the study.

After the findings were broken down state-by-state, the survey found that South Carolinians were the most wasteful overall, getting rid of $1,304.68 worth of food each year.

The least-wasteful state in the U.S. is West Virginia, the study states. This state’s residents reportedly only throw away $404.90 worth of their annual groceries.

Although this could in part be due to wasted leftovers, there could be another issue afoot.

The survey shows that only one-quarter of people know what the “use-by date” actually means for peak product quality.

According to the findings, the survey displayed that 30.4% of individuals believed that this date means the last date the product was edible, 22% thought that it meant that it was the last date the food product could be displayed and sold in a store and 21% believed that it meant the date that the product would be at its best flavor and quality, which is the meaning behind a “best-by date.”

According to the United States Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service (USDA FSIS), examples of commonly used phrases and their meaning include:

A “Best if Used By/Before” date indicates when a product will be of its best flavor or quality. It is not a purchase or safety date.
A “Sell-By” date tells the store how long to display the product for sale for inventory management. It is not a safety date.
A “Use-By” date is the last date recommended for the use of the product while at peak quality. It is not a safety date except for when used on infant formula as described below.
A “Freeze-By” date indicates when a product should be frozen to maintain peak quality. It is not a purchase or safety date.

The survey also discovered that, for food wasted, 51.1% of people believe that best before dates on fruits and vegetables should be ignored as “it’s easy to tell if something has gone bad,” as detailed by its findings. The study also discovered that the foods Americans would most likely throw away are dairy products at 46.6%, 22.3% for meat, fish at 19.2%, bread at 5.1% and vegetables at 8.5%.

Discarded rotten fruit left for waste after a market.

For those who don’t want their uneaten or unused food to go to waste, your local community may have several food drives, food banks and community help centers that will take all kinds of donations, especially around the holidays.

Although there could be several others, Feeding America’s website lets its users search for nearby affiliated food banks to donate. This website can be found online at https://www.feedingamerica.org/find-food-bank.

New tool reveals swaths of American coastline are expected to be underwater by 2050: ‘Time is slipping away’

The Cool Down

New tool reveals swaths of American coastline are expected to be underwater by 2050: ‘Time is slipping away’

Brittany Davies – October 31, 2023

If you ask Climate Central — which has a coastal risk screening tool that shows an area’s risk for rising sea levels and flooding over the coming decades — Texas’s coastline is in trouble.

The new map-based tool compiles research into viewable projections for water levels, land elevation, and other factors in localized areas across the U.S. to assess their potential risk.

The predictive technology indicates that, under some scenarios, many of Texas’s coastal areas, such as much of Galveston Island, Beaumont, and the barrier islands, will be underwater during floods by 2050.

What’s happening?

Coastal areas face threats from rising sea levels caused by melting ice caps and warming oceans, as well as flooding from storms intensified by changing temperatures. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates more than 128 million people live in coastal communities, many of which will be severely impacted by the effects of higher tides and dangerous storms.

CNN reports that coastal flooding could cost the global economy $14.2 trillion in damages, not including loss of life and well-being, by the end of the century. The loss of land due to sea level rise is also detrimental to the entire ecosystem, disrupting important wetlands and freshwater supplies.

Why is this concerning?

The coastal risk screening tool provides startling insight into how many areas will likely be affected by rising tides and floods, especially if nothing is done to mitigate Earth’s rapidly rising temperatures. As 2050 quickly approaches, time is slipping away to prepare and protect communities and ecosystems from the rising waters.

Planning, approving, and implementing new infrastructure and other major projects to keep communities safe can take years to complete. Because the wheels of bureaucracy turn slowly, cities need to start planning now before they find themselves in too deep.

What’s being done to reduce the risk?

Many of the most vulnerable regions are densely populated and people are already dealing with personal and economic damages from intensified flooding. While some may be able to move or make changes to their homes and communities to prepare for rising waters, not everyone has the means or desire to make these changes.

Several actions may be taken by individuals, organizations, municipalities, and the government to reduce the impacts of coastal flooding. The first step is understanding where the vulnerabilities are, indicates Peter Girard of Climate Central. Protecting existing wetlands and utilizing nature-based solutions such as living shorelines or sand dunes can lessen the impacts of flooding, storm surges, and erosion.

Community developers are encouraged to consider those most vulnerable when implementing coastal resiliency strategies such as shifting populations or building flood walls. Individuals living in flood zones should learn about the risks and obtain insurance protection if available.

Join our free newsletter for cool news and cool tips that make it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.

FDA tells consumers to stop using eye drops from major brands due to infection risk

USA Today

FDA tells consumers to stop using eye drops from major brands due to infection risk

Gabe Hauari, USA TODAY – October 30, 2023

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is advising consumers to stop using some over-the-counter eye drops due to a potential risk of infection that may lead to partial vision loss or blindness.

The agency issued an alert Friday flagging 26 eye care products from CVS Health, Leader (Cardinal Health), Rugby (Cardinal Health), Rite Aid, Target Up&Up and Velocity Pharma.

The FDA recommended the manufacturer of these products to recall all lots on Oct. 25 after investigators found unsanitary conditions in the manufacturing facility and positive bacterial test results from environmental sampling of “critical drug production areas” in the facility, the agency said.

CVS, Rite Aid and Target are removing the products from their store shelves and websites, according to the FDA, while products branded as Leader, Rugby and Velocity may still be available to purchase in stores and online. These products should not be purchased, the agency warned.

From COVID meds to abortion: Why conservatives are fighting the FDA’s power to regulate drugs

The FDA is recalling certain eye drop products due to a risk of infection to consumers.

What should you do if you have used these products?

People who have signs or symptoms of an eye infection after using these products should talk to their health care provider or seek medical care immediately, the FDA says.

The FDA also recommends consumers properly discard these products.

There have been no reports of eye infection associated with these products as of Friday, but the FDA encourages health care professionals and patients to report adverse events or quality problems with any medicine to the agency’s MedWatch Adverse Event Reporting Program.

For a full list of the 26 eye care products the FDA flagged, click here.

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Here’s every eye drop and gel being recalled from stores including Target, CVS, and Rite Aid after the FDA warned they could cause blindness

Insider

Here’s every eye drop and gel being recalled from stores including Target, CVS, and Rite Aid after the FDA warned they could cause blindness

Kim Schewitz – October 30, 2023

The FDA has warned consumers to avoid 26 eye drops and gels that could potentially cause blindness.
Retailers including CVS, Rite Aid, and Target are pulling the products from shelves.
The FDA said to seek medical care if you experience symptoms after using the products.

The FDA has warned consumers to immediately stop using and not buy 26 over-the-counter eye drops and gels that could potentially cause partial vision loss or blindness. Below is a list of all the products the FDA has told their manufacturer to recall.

Agency investigators found unsanitary conditions and bacteria where the products were made, according to a safety alert from the FDA published on Friday, and said they had the potential to cause infections that could result in blindness.

The FDA said on Friday that no adverse reactions had been flagged, but the products could pose “a potential heightened risk of harm” because drugs applied to the eyes bypass some of the body’s natural defenses.

The products were marketed under the brands: Target Up&Up, CVS Health, Rite Aid, Leader (Cardinal Health), Rugby (Cardinal Health), and Velocity Pharma.

Those who have signs or symptoms of an eye infection after using these products should speak to a healthcare provider or seek medical care immediately, the alert said.

Eye drops and gels recalled by the FDA

CVS Health:

Lubricant Eye Drops 15 ml (single pack)
Lubricant Eye Drops 15 ml (twin pack)
Lubricant Gel Drops 15 ml (single pack)
Lubricant Gel Drops 15 ml (twin pack)
Multi-Action Relief Drops 15 ml
Lubricating Gel drops 10 ml
Lubricant Eye Drops 10 ml (single pack)
Lubricant Eye Drops 10 ml (twin pack)
Mild Moderate Lubricating Eye Drops 15 ml (single pack)

Rugby (Cardinal Health):

Lubricating Tears Eye Drops 15 ml
Polyvinyl Alcohol 1.4% Lubricating Eye Drops 15 ml

Leader (Cardinal Health):

Dry Eye Relief 10 ml
Lubricant Eye Drops 15 ml (single pack)
Lubricant Eye Drops 15 ml (twin pack)
Dry Eye Relief 15 ml
Eye Irritation Relief 15 ml

Rite Aid:

Lubricant Eye Drops 15 ml (twin pack)
Lubricant Eye Drops 10 ml (twin pack)
Gentle Lubricant Gel Eye Drops 15 ml
Lubricant Gel Drops 15 ml
Lubricating Gel Drops 10 ml
Multi-Action Relief Drops 15 ml

Target:

Up&Up Dry Eye Relief Lubricant Eye Drops 30 ml
Up&Up Extreme Relief Dry Eye 15 ml (single pack)
Up&Up Extreme Relief Dry Eye 30 ml (twin pack)

Velocity Pharma:

Lubricant Eye Drop 10 ml (triple pack)

CVS, Rite Aid, and Target are pulling the drugs from shelves

CVS, Rite Aid, and Target are removing the products from their shelves and websites after the FDA recommended all batches be recalled on October 25, the alert said.

Products branded as Leader, Rugby, and Velocity may still be available in stores and online, the alert said, but they should not be purchased.

A spokeswoman for Rite Aid said that “due to safety concerns identified by the FDA, we are removing the applicable Rite Aid branded products from our store shelves.”

ACVS spokeswoman told Insider in an email: “We’ve immediately stopped the sale in-store and online of all products supplied by Velocity Pharma within the CVS Health Brand Eye Products portfolio,” and customers can return those products for a full refund.

In a statement, Cardinal Health said: “Immediately upon being notified, we placed all identified impacted eye drop products in our inventory on hold and contacted Velocity Pharma, the supplier of the impacted eye drop products.

“We are in the process of working with Velocity Pharma and FDA to initiate a recall of all impacted Rugby Laboratories and Cardinal Health Leader branded eye drop products to further safeguard public health and safety.”

Target and Velocity Pharma did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

In February, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and FDA warned against two other eye drop products, EzriCare Artificial Tears eye drops and Delsam Pharma’s Artificial Tears. The drugs were recalled over bacteria contamination, which was linked to four deaths and 14 cases of vision loss or eye removal.

Idaho is the most ‘overvalued’ housing market in the U.S., says Moody’s Analytics. Here’s where Utah ranks

Deseret News

Idaho is the most ‘overvalued’ housing market in the U.S., says Moody’s Analytics. Here’s where Utah ranks

Katie McKellar – October 30, 2023

New homes in Eagle, Idaho, are pictured on Sept. 23, 2022. | Ben B. Braun, Deseret News

Even though the housing market is in the midst of a correction thanks to the rapid rise of mortgage rates that began in mid-2022, U.S. home prices are still overvalued — and some local markets are more overvalued than others.

That’s according to a new analysis from Moody’s Analytics, which estimates national median home prices are about 15.7% over their fundamental value. The firm’s economist Matthew Walsh predicts they’ll decline another 4% to 4.5% in coming months, Insider recently reported.

Based on Moody’s model — which accounts for variables such as construction costs, household formation rates and where home prices currently stand compared to median incomes — Insider ranked all 50 states, plus Washington, D.C., from least overvalued to most. One state in the West sank to the very bottom.

Idaho ranked 51st as the most “overvalued” local housing market as of the second quarter of 2023, with a median home price estimated by Redfin of $467,000, Insider reported.

Moody’s model estimates Idaho’s home prices exceed their fundamental value by 41.87%, according to Insider. Higher than 10% is considered overvalued and those more than 20% higher are considered extremely overvalued.

“If you look at Idaho over the past three years, you’ve had this extreme run up in home prices since the pandemic began,” Walsh recently told the Daily Mail. “So if you look at that relative to the demographic drivers — the household formation and the income growth there — that run up has been so much more extreme which is why we see the inflated valuation of houses there.”

Housing bust or first to adjust? What’s actually happening in Boise, Idaho

It’s not the first time Idaho has made headlines for its home prices, which boiled over as low interest rates during the COVID-19 pandemic sent the West’s housing market into a frenzy. Housing markets in the West were also among the first to see the most dramatic price declines as interest rates skyrocketed amid the Federal Reserve’s battle with inflation.

Last year, when mortgage rates began rising from 3% to over 6%, Moody’s estimated Boise’s market was overvalued by an estimated 76.9%, Fortune reported. At the time, Moody’s estimated there were over 210 housing markets across the nation that were “significantly overvalued,” or overvalued by more than 25%.

Boise was also among the first to post a year-over-year home value decline in Zillow’s Home Value Index, down 1.2% in August 2022. More recently, Boise was down over 7% year over year, according to Zillow data through Sept. 30.

That suggests home prices in Boise may have further to fall, especially with mortgage rates today that hover well over 7%, some days exceeding 8%, according to Bankrate.com.

In a May commentary, Walsh wrote most U.S. metro areas continued to be overvalued even as prices ticked down amid the housing market correction. However, the number of fairly valued metro areas also continued to climb as prices “fall back toward their equilibrium value in many markets.”

Home sales are crashing down to reality in the West

“Despite the improvement, overvaluation remains more widespread than during the height of the 2000s housing bubble. Today there are more than 300 metro areas that are overvalued or extremely overvalued compared with 260 during the final quarter of 2006,” Walsh wrote.

In that commentary, Walsh also pointed to Boise as topping the list as the most overvalued. At the time, prices exceeded their estimated fundamental value by more than 54%. Walsh noted that was a “sharp reduction” from the prior quarter when Boise was overvalued by more than 63%.

In February, Moody’s Analytics projected home prices would continue to fall 5% to 10% from their 2022 peaks by the beginning of 2025, and predicted the most “highly overvalued” metro areas — such as Boise, Phoenix, Austin and Nashville — would see the largest declines.

However, that same Moody’s analysis also noted these price corrections are “not a crash.”

“House prices will not crater like they did during the Great Recession,” the February analysis said, predicting home prices will fall back to late 2021 levels in early 2024. “Only this year’s gains will be wiped out by declines. For perspective: in 2025, when the next low is reached, we expect prices nearly 30% higher than they were at the beginning of 2020.”

Where does Utah rank?

In the Insider list based on Moody’s model, Utah ranked No. 40 — 11 spots below Idaho in terms of overvaluation. Moody’s estimated Utah’s home prices exceed their fundamental value by 26.31%, Insider reported.

Utah, like Idaho, was also hit hard by the pandemic housing rush and saw some of the biggest home price declines as interest rates rose.

Boise housing market down the most in U.S. These Utah cities rank close behind

In August, after six straight months of growth, home prices in most of Utah’s Wasatch Front counties tipped down. In Salt Lake County, the median price of all home types fell to $520,000 that month, a nearly 10% drop from a year ago and nearly 2% down from July, according to the Salt Lake Board of Realtors. With rates rising and demand set to fade even more heading into winter, Utah could see even more price declines in coming months.

To put those declines in perspective, however, Utah’s home prices surged by 72% over the past five years, according to the Federal Housing Finance Agency. In the two-year period from 2020 to 2022 alone, the median sales price of a home in Utah rose almost 50%, up from $336,300 in February 2020 to $500,000 the same month in 2022, according to estimates from the University of Utah’s Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute.

Utah’s housing experts have predicted Utah would be impacted somewhat by the national housing market correction — but they also expect Utah’s home prices to remain stubbornly high, largely thanks to the state’s years long housing shortage that they say is poised to worsen as home building contracts. In a recent report from the Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute, housing researchers predict Utah’s housing shortage will likely increase to over 37,000 units by 2024.

They went hunting for fossil fuels. What they found could help save the world

CNN

They went hunting for fossil fuels. What they found could help save the world

Laura Paddison, CNN – October 29, 2023

When tw o scientists went looking for fossil fuels beneath the ground of northeastern France, they did not expect to discover something which could supercharge the effort to tackle the climate crisis.

Jacques Pironon and Phillipe De Donato, both directors of research at France’s National Centre of Scientific Research, were assessing the amount of methane in the subsoils of the Lorraine mining basin using a “world first” specialized probe, able to analyze gases dissolved in the water of rock formations deep underground.

A couple of hundred meters down, the probe found low concentrations of hydrogen. “This was not a real surprise for us,” Pironon told CNN; it’s common to find small amounts near the surface of a borehole. But as the probe went deeper, the concentration ticked up. At 1,100 meters down it was 14%, at 1,250 meters it was 20%.

This was surprising, Pironon said. It indicated the presence of a large reservoir of hydrogen beneath. They ran calculations and estimated the deposit could contain between 6 million and 250 million metric tons of hydrogen.

That could make it one of the largest deposits of “white hydrogen” ever discovered, Pironon said. The find has helped fuel an already feverish interest in the gas.

White hydrogen – also referred to as “natural,” “gold” or “geologic” hydrogen – is naturally produced or present in the Earth’s crust and has become something of a climate holy grail.

Hydrogen produces only water when burned, making it very attractive as a potential clean energy source for industries like aviation, shipping and steel-making that need so much energy it’s almost impossible to meet through renewables such as solar and wind.

But while hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, it generally exists combined with other molecules. Currently, commercial hydrogen is produced in an energy-intensive process almost entirely powered by fossil fuels.

A rainbow of colors is used as a shorthand for the different types of hydrogen. “Gray” is made from methane gas and “brown” from coal. “Blue” hydrogen is the same as gray, but the planet-heating pollution produced is captured before it goes into the atmosphere.

The most promising from a climate perspective is “green” hydrogen, made using renewable energy to split water. Yet production remains small scale and expensive.

That’s why interest in white hydrogen, a potentially abundant, untapped source of clean-burning energy, has ratcheted up over the last few years.

‘We haven’t been looking in the right places’

“If you had asked me four years ago what I thought about natural hydrogen, I would have told you ‘oh, it doesn’t exist,’” said Geoffrey Ellis, a geochemist with the US Geological Survey. “Hydrogen’s out there, we know it’s around,” he said, but scientists thought big accumulations weren’t possible.

Then he found out about Mali. Arguably, the catalyst for the current interest in white hydrogen can be traced to this West African country.

In 1987, in the village of Bourakébougou, a driller was left with burns after a water well unexpectedly exploded as he leaned over the edge of it while smoking a cigarette.

The well was swiftly plugged and abandoned until 2011, when it was unplugged by an oil and gas company and reportedly found to be producing a gas that was 98% hydrogen. The hydrogen was used to power the village, and more than a decade later, it is still producing.

When a study came out about the well in 2018, it caught the attention of the science community, including Ellis. His initial reaction was that there had to be something wrong with the research, “because we just know that this can’t happen.”

Then the pandemic hit and he had time on his hands to start digging. The more he read, the more he realized “we just haven’t been looking for it, we haven’t been looking in the right places.”

The recent discoveries are exciting for Ellis, who has been working as a petroleum geochemist since the 1980s. He witnessed the rapid growth of the shale gas industry in the US, which revolutionized the energy market. “Now,” he said, “here we are in what I think is probably a second revolution.”

White hydrogen is “very promising,” agreed Isabelle Moretti, a scientific researcher at the University of Pau et des Pays de l’Adour and the University of Sorbonne and a white hydrogen expert.

“Now the question is no longer about the resource… but where to find large economic reserves,” she told CNN.

A slew of startups

Dozens of processes generate white hydrogen but there is still some uncertainty about how large natural deposits form.

Geologists have tended to focus on “serpentinization,” where water reacts with iron-rich rocks to produce hydrogen, and “radiolysis,” a radiation-driven breakdown of water molecules.

White hydrogen deposits have been found throughout the world, including in the US, eastern Europe, Russia, Australia, Oman, as well as France and Mali.

Some have been discovered by accident, others by hunting for clues like features in the landscapes sometimes referred to as “fairy circles” – shallow, elliptical depressions that can leak hydrogen.

Ellis estimates globally there could be tens of billions of tons of white hydrogen. This would be vastly more than the 100 million tons a year of hydrogen that is currently produced and the 500 million tons predicted to be produced annually by 2050, he said.

“Most of this is almost certainly going to be in very small accumulations or very far offshore, or just too deep to actually be economic to produce,” he said. But if just 1% can be found and produced, it would provide 500 million tons of hydrogen for 200 years, he added.

It’s a tantalizing prospect for a slew of startups.

Australia-based Gold Hydrogen is currently drilling in the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia. It targeted that spot after scouring the state’s archives and discovering that back in the 1920s, a number of boreholes had been drilled there which had very high concentrations of hydrogen. The prospectors, only interested in fossil fuels, abandoned them.

“We’re very excited by what we’re seeing,” said managing director Neil McDonald. There is more testing and drilling to do but the company could get into early production possibly in late 2024, he told CNN.

Some startups are seeing eye-popping investments. Koloma, a Denver-based white hydrogen start-up, has secured $91 million from investors, including the Bill Gates-founded investment firm Breakthrough Energy Ventures – although the company remains tight-lipped about exactly where in the US it is drilling and when it is aiming for commercialization.

Another Denver-based company, Natural Hydrogen Energy, founded by geochemist Viacheslav Zgonnik, has completed an exploratory hydrogen borehole in Nebraska in 2019 and has plans for new wells. The world is “very close to the first commercial projects,” Zgonnik told CNN.

“Natural hydrogen is a solution which will allow us to get get to speed” on climate action, he said.

Aerial view of drilling operations by Natural Hydrogen Energy in Kansas. - Natural Hydrogen Energy LLC — Aerial view of drilling operations by Natural Hydrogen Energy in Kansas. – Natural Hydrogen Energy LLC

From hype to reality

The challenge for these businesses and for scientists will be translating hypothetical promise into a commercial reality.

“There could be a period of decades where there’s a lot of trial and error and false starts,” Ellis said. But speed is vital. “If it’s going to take us 200 years to develop the resource, that’s not really going to be of much use.”

But many of the startups are bullish. Some predict years, not decades, to commercialization. “We have all necessary technology we need, with some slight modifications,” Zgonnik said.

Challenges remain. In some countries, regulations are an obstacle. Costs also need to be worked out. According to calculations based on the Mali well, white hydrogen could cost around $1 a kilogram to produce – compared to around $6 a kilogram for green hydrogen. But white hydrogen could quickly become more expensive if large deposits require deeper drilling.

Back in the Lorraine basin, Pironon and De Donato’s next steps are to drill down to 3,000 meters to get a clearer idea of exactly how much white hydrogen there is.

There’s a long way to go, but it would be ironic if this region – once one of western Europe’s key coal producers – became an epicenter of a new white hydrogen industry.

Shopper left furious after purchase on dad’s recent grocery store trip: ‘Totally wipes out the benefit’

The Cool Down

Shopper left furious after purchase on dad’s recent grocery store trip: ‘Totally wipes out the benefit’

Kendall Burke – October 29, 2023

A Redditor who found a baffling instance of excessive plastic took to the r/anticonsumption subreddit to voice their frustrations.

The poster said their dad bought the offending cucumber — which was covered in not one, but two layers of single-use plastic — during a recent grocery run, seemingly at U.K. chain Morrison’s, given the branding The Greengrocer’s on Market Street.

“All this plastic for HALF A F******* CUCUMBER,” the frustrated Redditor wrote.

The image reveals that the package actually contains just half a cucumber, which could be the reason for wrapping it in so much plastic, as cut vegetables and fruit spoil faster than uncut ones. However, that raises the question, why would anyone sell just half a cucumber.

Commenters agreed with the original poster’s sentiment.

One shared, “The other day I saw organic cilantro on a plastic tray, wrapped with plastic. Totally wipes out the benefit of organic.”

Another joked, “Nice I need a plastic bag to transport it too please.”

While plastic wrap can reduce how quickly food spoils, a main cause of consumer-level food waste, it can take anywhere between 20 and 500 years (or more by some estimates) to break down in our landfills and oceans.

Innovative solutions to this issue are being perfected every day. Multiple companies have debuted versions of plastic-free “plastic” wrap, with one particularly cool option that sprays on like a Spiderman web. There are also myriad groups at work on an international and local level to clean up our existing ocean plastic problem.