When Russia invaded Ukraine a year ago, President Vladimir Putin had a lot more in his war plan than tanks and missiles. Putin also planned an energy war in parallel with his military war on the ground in Ukraine.
Putin’s military war has gone badly, his army decimated after failing to seize Ukraine, as planned. Putin’s energy war has failed, too. Neither war is over, but the many nations now allied against Russia have done a remarkable job blunting Putin’s most potent economic weapon.
Putin clearly anticipated sanctions against his country in response to the 2022 invasion. He also thought he could counter those sanctions using Russian energy, which Europe in particular was dependent on. Russia is the world’s third-largest oil and natural gas producer, and at the time of the invasion, it was Europe’s top source of gas, needed to produce electricity.
At first, Putin’s energy war worked as planned. Sanctions imposed by the United States and other nations largely exempted Russian energy, to protect consumers from price spikes. But the unpredictable nature of those sanctions, plus instability caused by the war itself, generated a “fear premium” in energy markets that pushed prices up. Oil prices spiked from about $90 before the invasion to nearly $125 four months later.
U.S. gasoline prices hit $5 per gallon last June, damaging President Biden’s popularity and making inflation a bigger everyday concern for Americans than the war in Ukraine. Natural gas prices rose by far more than oil and gasoline. Russia started reducing gas flows to Europe last June, then completely shut the main gas pipeline to Europe in September.
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By late August, European natural gas prices were four times higher than before the war. Wintertime rationing seemed likely, along with a recession caused by sporadic business shutdowns and painful energy inflation. Gas prices surged in the United States as well, though not by as much in Europe, given that gas is not as transportable as oil, generating regional price differences.
Soaring energy prices were exactly the kind of pain Putin planned for nations opposing his war. His hope was that high energy prices among Ukraine’s allies would wreck their economies, undermining public support for sanctions and for aid to Ukraine.
The full-blown energy crisis Putin tried to create never materialized, however. Prices tell the story. Oil, gasoline and natural gas prices are now lower than they were before Putin invaded, as the chart above shows. Russia is still a crucial source of energy, but the nations it tried to bring to heel have reconfigured their energy supply chains with speed and skill nobody foresaw a year ago.
“The last year may be remembered as the twilight for Russian energy leverage,” Richard Morningstar, founding chairman of the Atlantic Council Global Energy Center, wrote in a January report. “Moscow’s energy strategy is not working, and its ability to wield energy chaos as a geopolitical weapon is waning.”
Several concerted actions by Ukraine’s allies parried Putin’s energy offensive. In the United States, President Biden released an unprecedented amount of oil from the strategic reserve, with other countries releasing smaller amounts. Though not huge relative to total oil supply, those releases seem to have reassured markets and brought price relief at the margins.
TOPSHOT – Workers repair high-voltage power lines cut by recent missile strikes near Odessa on December 7, 2022, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. – A new barrage of Russian strikes on December 5, left several Ukrainian cities without power, including the eastern city of Sumy and the southern city of Mykolaiv, according to officials. In Odessa, the water services operator said “there is no water supply anywhere” and officials in the central city of Kryvyi Rig said “parts of the city are cut off from electricity, several boiler and pumping stations are disconnected.” (Photo by OLEKSANDR GIMANOV / AFP) (Photo by OLEKSANDR GIMANOV/AFP via Getty Images)
Putin himself blinked. He could have slowed or stopped Russian oil sales, which would undoubtedly have sent prices soaring, given that Russia produces about 10% of the world’s oil. But he never did. Oil sales are Russia’s biggest source of revenue, and Putin desperately needs that funding to pay for a war that is far costlier than he anticipated. Russian oil production has actually remained stable for most of the past year, which is helping Putin keep the war going but also keeping global prices under control.
Europe also dramatically revamped its natural-gas supply chains, with the portion of gas coming from Russia dropping from 40% to less than 10%. And much of that gas goes to Turkey and Balkan nations not fully participating in sanctions. Gas shipped on tankers from the United States and Qatar backfilled much of the supply lost from Russia. Some European power plants also switched from gas to coal, which boosted carbon emissions, but is also likely temporary.
The United States and other large nations have also developed novel ways to begin sanctioning Russian energy while keeping supplies on the market and prices low. In December, a U.S.-led group of large nations imposed a price cap of $60 per barrel on Russian oil. Barrels from Russia generally sell for less than that, since global prices have been around $80 and the market demands a discount for the risk and complexity of purchasing from Russia. But this “buyers cartel” can lower the price and pinch Russia harder.
On February 5, another set of price caps went into effect for Russian petroleum products such as diesel fuel. Putin has vowed to withhold oil from any buyer participating in the price-cap regime, but so far nothing has changed.
Putin may still have some ammunition in reserve. “Given that Washington has strongly signaled an aversion to higher oil prices, and has gone to quite extraordinary lengths to keep a lid on them, there remains an elevated risk that Putin will seek to exploit this pain point in 2023,” Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, wrote in the January Atlantic Council report. “We may be entering a particularly precarious phase in the conflict. Putin may endeavor to demonstrate that he is not a spent force.”
One concern is Russian sabotage of energy facilities in regions where it has some influence, similar to the mysterious explosions that ruptured two undersea gas pipelines running from Russia to Germany last September. Russia has links to mercenary groups in oil-producing nations such as Iraq, Algeria, and Libya, and direct involvement in some energy facilities operated by former Soviet Republics. Some analysts think a surprise slowdown in production from two fields in Kazakhstan last April may have been a dress rehearsal for future Russian sabotage.
Officials plan to shoot 150 cattle from the sky Thursday. An 11th-hour lawsuit hopes to stop it.
Natalie Neysa Alund, USA TODAY – February 24, 2023
Less than 24 hours before bullets are set to fly, a group of animal activists including the Humane Farming Association hopes an 11th-hour lawsuit stops the planned aerial slaughter of 150 cattle in New Mexico.
During a federally-approved, three day-event set to start Thursday, the U.S. Forest Service plans to shoot feral cattle from a helicopter roaming a southwestern area of the state.
The federal agency announced its decision on Feb. 16, explaining feral cattle on the 560,000-acre Gila Wilderness Area “pose a significant threat to public safety and natural resources.”
Opponents including The New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association (NMCGA) this week asked a judge to grant a temporary restraining order to stop the mass killing. A hearing on the scheduled slaughter is set for Wednesday morning, court records show.
Federal officials are set to start shooting feral cattle in the Gila Wilderness starting February 23, 2023. A lawsuit filed just two days before the scheduled slaughter hopes to stop it.
On Tuesday, the group jointly filed suit in U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico against the Forest Service and the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) to prevent “the inhumane aerial gunning” of cattle.
“No matter what the Forest Service claims, this is unadulterated animal cruelty,” said Humane Farming Association National Director Bradley Miller. “These animals don’t take the shots standing still – they run in fear from the helicopter chasing them. These are not clean kills; the cattle experience horrifically slow deaths. Their orphaned calves are left to starve or be killed by predators.”
USA TODAY has reached out to the Forest Service and the USDA for comment.
The animals are to be shot within the Gila National Forest, a 3-million-acre reserve in New Mexico.
Last year, the NMCGA filed a temporary restraining order in an effort to stop the Forest Service’s plan to use aerial gunning to eliminate free-roaming cattle from the wilderness area, during which 65 cattle were shot at and killed from a helicopter. That legal effort was denied.
A stipulation resulting from last year’s lawsuit required that the agency provide the cattle growers and the public 75 days’ written notice before future shooting commenced, this year’s lawsuit alleges.
“Yet, this year, the Forest Service provided only one week’s notice,” according to a press release from the Humane Farming Association.
APHIS intends “to shoot as many as 150 cattle with high-powered rifles from a helicopter, leaving their carcasses strewn throughout New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness,” the new 31-page lawsuit reads. “Intervention is necessary to put an immediate stop to this unlawful, cruel, and environmentally harmful action, both now and in the future.”
Lawsuit claims violation of law
In the suit, the plaintiffs argue that, in addition to not complying with the 75-day notice, the Forest Service has no legal authority to carry out its aerial gunning plan, in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, which governs the process by which federal agencies develop and issue regulations.
“Shooting violates the APA because it is not authorized by statute or regulation, exceeds the Forest Service’s authority, and fails to follow the existing regulations for the removal of unauthorized cattle,” the suit continues.
In addition, plaintiffs argue that, by proceeding without first conducting an environmental review of the significant harms to the wilderness ecosystem, the Forest Service is violating the National Environmental Policy Act. Because the Forest Service intends to leave all 150 dead and dying cattle in the wilderness to decompose, the government will cause catastrophic pollution of the Gila River and impermissibly interfere with the natural feeding behaviors of native wildlife.
Natalie Neysa Alund covers trending news for USA TODAY.
U.S. Man’s Death Suggests Deadly Tick Virus Is Spreading to New Regions
Ed Cara – February 24, 2023
The Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum) is known to spread several infectious diseases, including the Heartland virus.
A rare but sometimes fatal tickborne infection may be expanding its range in the U.S., local and federal health officials warn in a report this week. They say that a case of Heartland virus led to a man’s death in 2021. The infection is thought to have been caught in either Virginia or Maryland—a region of the country where the virus hasn’t been spotted in humans until now.
The report was published online Thursday in Emerging Infectious Diseases by officials with the Virginia Department of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes of Health, as well as doctors at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.
The man was in his late 60s and visited an emergency room in November 2021 with symptoms of fever, diarrhea, aches, and general discomfort. He didn’t appear to have any tick bites, but given his symptoms and the fact that he spent time between two homes in rural Virginia and Maryland, his doctors suspected a tickborne infection and sent him home with antibiotics. Unfortunately, two days later, he returned to the ER with new symptoms, including confusion and unsteady gait, and he was then admitted to the hospital.
The man’s health continued to worsen, and he was soon sent to a specialized care center. Despite testing for various germs, doctors couldn’t find the source of his illness. He eventually developed hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, a rare but life-threatening condition in which the body’s white blood cells attack the organs. His lungs and liver started to fail, and he developed cardiac arrest. He was then placed in palliative care. Thirteen days after his symptoms began, he died.
Doctors still suspected that he had contracted an infection spread by insects or ticks. Given the possibility of an ongoing threat to the public, officials with the Virginia Department of Health launched an investigation. They sent blood samples to the CDC for more extensive testing and went to the man’s homes in eastern Maryland and central Virginia the following summer to collect ticks in the area. The CDC testing finally revealed that he was infected with the Heartland virus, and a subsequent autopsy determined that he had died from complications of the infection.
Heartland virus was discovered in 2009 by doctors at the Heartland Regional Medical Center in northwestern Missouri. It’s known to be spread by the Lone Star tick (Amblyomma americanum), which is commonly found throughout the Eastern and Midwestern U.S. Many known cases of Heartland virus have led to hospitalization and death, but it’s only been sporadically documented in humans. Around 50 cases have been reported in over a dozen states to date, including Kentucky, Indiana, and as far north as New York.
Maryland and Virginia are within the tick’s expected range, but this case of Heartland appears to be the first ever traced back to either state. Because of the larger tick population found at the man’s home in Virginia, the report authors believe he caught it there. Interestingly enough, they failed to find the virus inside ticks at either location. But that doesn’t rule out its presence in these areas, they wrote, particularly because the virus seems to circulate in ticks at very low levels. They further suspect that the man caught the infection from larval ticks, since adults typically become inactive by late October (when he was likely bit). That could also explain why he didn’t notice the initial bite, given their smaller size, and why doctors failed to find any evidence by the time he felt sick roughly two weeks later, since any bite could have healed by then.
Especially compared to much more common tickborne diseases like Lyme disease, Heartland virus is a very rare danger to humans. But it is possible that we’re missing many milder cases of Heartland or that these infections are misdiagnosed as other tickborne diseases because they tend to share common symptoms, the authors say. And thanks in part to climate change, ticks generally are expanding their distribution throughout the U.S., which will make all of the many diseases they carry a bigger threat to worry about.
“Because tick ranges are increasing overall, incidence of previously regional tickborne infections, such as [Heartland virus], likely will continue to increase,” they wrote.
Toxic wastewater from Ohio train derailment headed to Texas
February 23, 2023
FILE – This photo taken with a drone shows portions of a Norfolk Southern freight train that derailed Friday night in East Palestine, Ohio are still on fire at mid-day Saturday, Feb. 4, 2023. Toxic wastewater used to extinguish a fire following a train derailment in Ohio is headed to a Houston suburb for disposal. Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo says “firefighting water” from the East Palestine, Ohio train derailment is to be disposed of in the county and she is seeking more information.(AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
DEER PARK, Texas (AP) — Toxic wastewater used to extinguish a fire following a train derailment in Ohio is headed to a Houston suburb for disposal.
“I and my office heard today that ‘firefighting water’ from the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment is slated to be disposed of in our county,” Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said in a Wednesday statement.
“Our Harris County Pollution Control Department and Harris County Attorney’s have reached out to the company and the Environmental Protection Agency to receive more information,” Hidalgo wrote.
The wastewater is being sent to Texas Molecular, which injects hazardous waste into the ground for disposal.
The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality told KTRK-TV that Texas Molecular “is authorized to accept and manage a variety of waste streams, including vinyl chloride, as part of their … hazardous waste permit and underground injection control permit.”
The company told KHOU-TV it is experienced in managing this type of disposal.
“Our technology safely removes hazardous constituents from the biosphere. We are part of the solution to reduce risk and protect the environment, whether in our local area or other places that need the capabilities we offer to protect the environment,” the company said.
The fiery Feb. 3 derailment in Ohio prompted evacuations when toxic chemicals were burned after being released from five derailed tanker rail cars carrying vinyl choride that were in danger of exploding.
“It’s … very, very toxic,” Dr. George Guillen, the executive director of the Environmental Institute of Houston, said, but the risk to the public is minimal.
“This injection, in some cases, is usually 4,000 or 5,000 feet down below any kind of drinking water aquifer,” said Guillen, who is also a professor of biology and environmental science at the University of Houston-Clear Lake.
Both Guillen and Deer Park resident Tammy Baxter said their greatest concerns are transporting the chemicals more than 1,300 miles (2,090 kilometers) from East Palestine, Ohio; to Deer Park, Texas.
“There has to be a closer deep well injection,” Baxter told KTRK. “It’s foolish to put it on the roadway. We have accidents on a regular basis … It is silly to move it that far.”
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who visited the derailment site Thursday, has warned the railroad responsible for the derailment, Norfolk Southern, to fulfill its promises to clean up the mess just outside East Palestine, Ohio, and help the town recover.
Pritzker Will Do What It Takes to Keep Both DeSantis and Trump Out of the White House
Laura Davison and Shruti Date Singh – February 23, 2023
Pritzker Will Do What It Takes to Keep Both DeSantis and Trump Out of the White House
(Bloomberg) — Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker said he’s willing to spend what it takes in the next election to help President Joe Biden keep his job — and keep Republicans like Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump out of the White House.
“It’s very important to me that we elect a Democratic president and that we make sure to keep DeSantis, Trump and the retrograde views that they carry out of the White House,” Pritzker, a longtime Democratic donor, said in an interview Thursday with Bloomberg News in Chicago. “I’ll continue to support Democrats in the best way I can to help them get elected.”
Pritzker, 58, is a member of one of the world’s wealthiest families, with a net worth of $3.7 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The Democrat has been in the middle of recent spats with DeSantis, Florida’s Republican governor, and is a long-running nemesis of Citadel founder and GOP mega-donor Ken Griffin, who has said he’d back a DeSantis bid for president in 2024.
DeSantis, who visited Illinois this week, has criticized Chicago’s crime under Pritzker’s watch. Pritzker shot back, saying that DeSantis is trying to lower public education standards by banning the teaching of racial history.
Pritzker also said Griffin moved his financial empire headquarters to Miami from Chicago last year out of “embarrassment” after spending $50 million trying to defeat him in the gubernatorial race by backing Richard Irvin, the mayor of Aurora, Illinois.
“That person lost badly in the Republican primary,” Pritzker said in an interview Thursday with Bloomberg TV.
National Attention
Trading barbs with prominent Republicans sets up Pritzker for national political attention.
Pritzker, who was re-elected as Illinois governor in 2022, said he has been approached about potentially running for president, but declined to give any details about those discussions. He said he’s happy as governor, intends to serve the rest of his term and will back Biden this cycle.
Still, he’s raised his national profile by visiting New Hampshire and Florida, and has taken stances on expanding abortion access and banning assault weapons, stoking speculation that he has lofty ambitions beyond the Illinois statehouse in Springfield.
Regardless, the billionaire’s wealth promises to play a role in the 2024 race.
He poured more than $300 million of his own money into his two successful bids for governor. He spent about $51 million for a failed campaign to change Illinois’s flat income-tax structure to one that increases taxes on the rich.
Outside of Illinois, Pritzker and his wife have donated more than $39 million since 2011, according to campaign finance disclosures. Topping the list of recipients is Priorities USA Action, the super-PAC that’s supported Democratic presidential nominees since it was launched in 2011.
The Pritzkers have also given $2 million to support Hillary Clinton’s 2016 general election campaign and $1.4 million to back Biden in 2020.
Jo Wood on gardening: ‘A surprise diagnosis opened my eyes to all the chemicals in food’
Ria Higgins – February 23, 2023
‘I loved the idea of being self-sufficient, not only growing my own food, but having my own heat, electricity and water supply’ – John Lawrence
The entrepreneur and ex-wife of Rolling Stones rocker Ronnie Wood on the joy of going off-grid and being in touch with nature.
Where do you live?
I live in Northamptonshire, near Silverstone, in a place I saw online four years ago. The property was being sold as an off-grid farmhouse and I’d dreamed of going off-grid. I loved the idea of being self-sufficient, not only growing my own food, but having my own heat, electricity and water supply. This was it! It came with six acres, old sheds and barns ripe for conversion. The land was barren and there was no garden, but it meant I could do things my way. After my divorce from Ronnie in 2011, I’d been living in central London, so it was a huge change.
What did you have to do to get the house and garden up and running?
I moved into the house in November 2019, and in those first few weeks, the water ran out, the solar panels didn’t work, the electrics were dodgy, and the generator for heat and light broke down. I sat in the kitchen and said to myself: “I’ve made such a terrible mistake.” But slowly, I found the right people to help me turn things around. A modern generator was installed, new solar panels fitted and, after locating an underground water supply, an engineer drilled a hole nearly 300ft down to provide me with my own water. It was expensive, but from then on, I’d have no more bills.
What were your plans for the garden?
One of the first things I did was to plant 70 trees, including willow, oak and apple. But my priority that first spring was to build raised beds for growing organic fruit and veg. Of course, four months after I moved in, the country went into lockdown; but with my son Tyrone and my daughter Leah and her family, we were all in the same bubble, so I got cracking and they helped me. Within no time, we’d sown everything from potatoes to pumpkins, with nasturtiums and calendula for colour. The house itself was already covered with climbing roses, so I planted lavender, rosemary and other scented herbs and flowers beneath.
‘One thing my kids were excited about was creating a wild swimming pond,’ says Jo Wood – John Lawrence
Why did you become so passionate about growing organic food?
I met Ronnie in 1977, when I was just 22. At that point, I had my son Jamie and he had his son Jesse. We had Leah and Tyrone together and got married in 1985. Then in 1990, I got ill and was diagnosed with Crohn’s disease. I was on steroids; I was miserable. Then someone who’d read about my illness told me to cut out processed foods and go organic – veg, fruit, meat, the lot. With nothing to lose, I did. Four months later, I felt fantastic. But I got ill again. This time, I found out I didn’t have Crohn’s, I had a perforated appendix. Doctors were amazed I was still alive. I recovered, but my eyes were opened to all the chemicals in food, so I became even more obsessed with organic.
How did your family react to your organic obsession?
Ronnie thought I was mad and the family banned me from using the word “organic”. But I was on a mission. The only thing I didn’t have was a garden big enough to grow my own food. It was when we went to stay at Ronnie’s house in Kildare, in Ireland, that I got my first taste of growing organic veg. I loved it. In fact, one year we had such a huge crop of potatoes, I put a load in a suitcase, took them to a Stones gig in Paris and asked their chef if he’d cook them. Keith Richards turned to me and said: “The trouble with you, darling, is that you’re addicted to organic.” Actually, Keith’s wife, Patti, has a veg garden in Connecticut. She gets it!
What other projects have you focused on in your new home?
One thing my kids were excited about was creating a wild swimming pond. It was part of my plan to rewild a huge section of the land that I’d already scattered with native wildflower seeds, such as red clover, cowslip, ragged robin and oxeye daisy. Tyrone took charge. He had the pond dug out and lined with local clay, and once we’d filled it with water, Leah, who now lives with her family up the road, helped me get started with aquatic plants such as water hawthorn, spearwort, lilies and yellow flag iris. By the second year, they all went mad. Glorious! It came alive with wildlife and watching birds fly in and out was magical.
Wood plans to have a whole field of lavender eventually – John Lawrence
Did you have a garden as a child?
Mum was from South Africa. She met Dad, who was from Devon, on a train. He was an architectural model maker and, after the war, he worked for Essex council on the model for a new town called Basildon. When it was completed, the council gave him a new council house and as soon as we moved in, Mum wanted chickens and an avocado tree – no one ate avocados back then. She also grew medicinal herbs; she was a huge believer in feverfew, an old remedy for fevers, and mullein, which is great for coughs. She’s inspired me to create a medicinal herb garden here. I might even grow avocados!
Do you think gardening is good for your mind as well as the body?
More and more, I find it’s so important to be outside, to soak up natural light, be in touch with nature, to feel the earth on my skin. In the summer, I often go around barefoot. Other times, there’s nothing like the simplicity of sitting under a tree and just soaking it all in. Trees are such amazing things. In 2016, I bought a little house with two acres in the hills of Murcia, in Spain, and filled it with fruit trees – pomegranate, fig, orange, lemon and olive. It’s my little getaway.
What’s your next project in the garden?
I have so many plans and one of them is to have a whole field of lavender. It would be so beautiful and I could get someone to harvest it. And now that we’ve got wildflowers, I also want to make my own honey. The bees will have a feast. Jamie’s also been studying the health benefits of supplements made from mushrooms and wants to start growing them, while Tyrone has converted old sheds into a bar and a play area for the kids. I’ve now got 10 grandchildren, so they have the best time here.
What have been the biggest challenges to going off-grid?
In the early days, I’d often have to stick on my wellies and go out in the rain in the middle of the night because the lights hadn’t come on or the hot water was like ice. Now, I’ve replaced everything and there’s an app on my phone that tells me if the generator’s on and how much heat I’m getting from my solar panels. It’s other things that give me grief. Rabbits. One morning, I came out to all these holes and half-eaten muddy carrots. The audacity! But mud or no mud, I haven’t given up my glamorous life altogether. I still swap my wellies and woolly hat for heels and sequins sometimes. I’ve got the best of both worlds.
Jo Wood’s organic product range is available to shop at jowoodorganics.com.
Judge rules New Mexico feral cattle can be shot from helicopters
Clark Mindock – February 22, 2023
A cow that has gotten loose from its pen stands in the middle of Hwy 10 in Winnie, Texas
(Reuters) -The U.S. Forest Service can go ahead with a plan to shoot dozens of feral cattle from helicopters in New Mexico’s Gila Wilderness after a federal judge on Wednesday refused a request by ranchers for an emergency order to stop the cull.
Cattle ranchers and local business owners told U.S. District Judge James Browning earlier on Wednesday at a hearing in Albuquerque the four-day hunt of about 150 stray or unbranded cows, due to start on Thursday, would violate federal laws and Forest Service regulations and likely kill cows they own.
In denying the plaintiffs’ bid for the emergency order, Browning said they were unlikely to succeed on the merits of their case and that of the approximately 300 cattle removed or killed over the last several decades “only one has been branded, and it was removed rather than killed.”
Jessica Blome, an attorney for the ranchers, said they are “deeply disappointed that the court green lit” the plan.
The Forest Service did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Forest Service announced the hunt last week, the second in as many years, saying feral cows were damaging habitats and menacing hikers who visit the vast Southwestern national monument known for its mountain ranges and plunging, rock-walled canyons.
U.S. Department of Justice attorney Andrew Smith, representing the Forest Service, argued on Wednesday that blocking the cull would allow feral cow populations to “rebound, and last year’s efforts would be wasted.”
Aerial hunting of feral hogs and predators like coyotes is a common practice in the American West but efforts to gun down cattle from above have been met with protest.
The New Mexico Cattle Growers Association (NMCGA), which had filed a lawsuit on Tuesday alongside other ranching, farming and business interests, said aerial shooting puts at risk privately owned cattle that may have strayed through broken fences or to find water. That loss harms an industry already hard-hit by climate change and rising costs, it said.
Ranchers also said helicopter hunting is inefficient and inhumane, causing cattle to run and forcing shooters to pepper cows with multiple rounds before they are left to die, sometimes days later.
NMCGA sued the Forest Service over its last cull, resulting in an out-of-court settlement. The ranchers said that agreement requires the government to give the public 75 days’ notice before it shoots feral cows from helicopters. The government provided just seven days’ notice this year, they said.
(Reporting by Clark Mindock in New York; Editing by Alexia Garamfalvi, Matthew Lewis and Tom Hogue)
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A U.S. district judge on Wednesday cleared the way for federal officials to move ahead with plans to take to the air and shoot dozens of wild cattle in a rugged area of southwestern New Mexico.
Ranchers had sought a delay, arguing that the potential mass slaughter of as many as 150 “unauthorized” cows on public land was a violation of federal regulations and amounted to animal cruelty.
After listening to arguments that stretched throughout the day, Judge James Browning denied the request, saying the ranchers failed to make their case. He also said the U.S. Forest Service is charged with managing the wilderness for the benefit of the public, and the operation would further that aim.
“No one disputes that the Gila cattle need to be removed and are doing significant damage to the Gila Wilderness,” Browning wrote. “The court does not see a legal prohibition on the operation. It would be contrary to the public interest to stop the operation from proceeding.”
Plans by the Forest Service call for shooting the cattle with a high-powered rifle from a helicopter and leaving the carcasses in the Gila Wilderness. It was estimated by attorneys for the ranchers that 65 tons of dead animals would be left in the forest for months until they decompose or are eaten by scavengers.
Officials closed a large swath of the forest Monday and were scheduled to begin the shooting operation Thursday.
The New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association, individual ranchers and the Humane Farming Association filed a complaint in federal court Tuesday, alleging that agency officials were violating their own regulations and overstepping their authority.
The complaint stated that court intervention was necessary to put an immediate stop to “this unlawful, cruel, and environmentally harmful action, both now and in the future.”
The ranchers had argued that the case could set a precedent for how federal officials handle unbranded livestock on vacant allotments or deal with other land management conflicts across the West.
“There’s a severe danger here, not just in this particular case and the horrific results that it will actually bare if this is allowed to go forward. But it also has long-term ramifications for the power of federal agencies to disregard their regulations that they themselves passed,” Daniel McGuire, an attorney for the ranchers, told the judge.
The Gila National Forest issued its final decision to gun down the wayward cattle last week amid pressure from environmental groups that have raised concerns that cattle are compromising water quality and habitat for other species as they trample stream banks in sensitive areas.
Much of the debate during Wednesday’s hearing centered on whether the animals were unauthorized livestock or feral cows, as the Forest Service has been referring to them.
Ranchers said the cattle in question were the descendants of cows that legally grazed the area in the 1970s before the owner went out of business. They pointed to DNA and genetic markers, saying the temperament of the animals doesn’t mean they cease to be domesticated livestock.
As defined in Forest Service regulations, unauthorized livestock refers to any cattle, sheep, goats or hogs that are not authorized by permit to be grazing on national forest land. The regulations calls for an impoundment order to be issued and the livestock rounded up, with lethal action being a final step for those that aren’t captured.
Despite issuing such an order earlier this month, the agency argued it wasn’t required to follow the removal procedures outlined by the regulations because the cattle don’t fit the definition of livestock since they aren’t domesticated or being kept or raised by any individual.
Government attorney Andrew Smith said the cows have no pedigree.
“So it does make a difference what these cows are. They’re multigenerations of wildness going on,” he said.
The judge agreed.
Smith also argued that Congress has charged the Forest Service with protecting national forest land and that eradicating the cattle would put an end to decades of damage. He said previous gathering efforts over the decades only put a dent in the population but that an aerial shooting operation in 2022 was able to take out 65 cows in two days.
Had the project been delayed, Smith suggested that the population would rebound and last year’s effort would be wasted.
McGuire countered that Congress conferred authority on the Forest Service to make rules and regulations to protect and preserve the forest, not a license for the agency to do anything it wants.
Donald Trump, who rolled back rail safety regulations and slashed environmental protections, donates Trump-branded water to East Palestine residents
Erin Snodgrass – February 22, 2023
Former President Donald Trump heads out of the East Palestine Fire Department next to his son, Donald Trump, Jr., as he visits the area in the aftermath of the Norfolk Southern train derailment Feb. 3 in East Palestine, Ohio, Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2023. In the background is a pallet of personalized Trump water he donated.AP Photo/Matt Freed
Donald Trump visited East Palestine, Ohio, on Wednesday, following a disastrous train derailment.
The 2024 Republican candidate donated pallets of Trump-branded water to residents.
Trump’s visit raised questions about his administration’s rollback of rail safety regulations.
The former president’s visit to the northeastern village preempted Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s arrival by one day, and Trump relished every opportunity to castigate his Democratic successors, saying Buttigieg “should have already been here,” and commanding President Joe Biden to “get over here,” according to local reports.
While assuring East Palestine residents that they had “not been forgotten,” Trump managed to tout his own presence in the besieged community and brush off questions about his administration’s noted history of rolling back regulations on both rail safety and hazardous chemicals.
Trump started his day by briefly visiting with local leaders, according to WKBN-27, before conducting a small press conference at a fire station, where, donning his signature “Make America Great Again” hat, he handed out a flurry of red baseball caps to attendees.
During his speech, Trump pledged to donate thousands of bottles of cleaning supplies, as well as pallets of Trump-branded water bottles to members of the community, many of whom have expressed continued concern over the safety of the town’s water supply following the derailment.
“You wanna get those Trump bottles, I think, more than anybody else,” Trump said, while flanked by state and local leaders, including Republican Sen. JD Vance.
The former president dismissed questions about his administration’s rollback of Obama-era rail safety regulations saying he “had nothing to do with it.”
The Department of Transportation under Trump justified the rollback with a 2018 analysis arguing the cost of requiring such brakes would be “significantly higher” than the expected benefits of the update.
A spokesperson for Trump did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.
Following his Wednesday news conference, Trump visited a local Ohio McDonald’s where he handed out more MAGA hats and bought meals for firefighters.
San Francisco holds its breath to find out how much it will cost to protect its waterfront from sea level rise
David Knowles, Senior Editor – February 22, 2023
San Francisco’s waterfront. (Getty Images)
SAN FRANCISCO — On a brisk February morning, a portable orange traffic sign set up near the intersection of Mission Street and Embarcadero shuddered in the wind, blinking a warning to passing drivers: “Caution: King tides.”
Waves from San Francisco Bay now regularly breach the pier and spill into the streets at this spot during tidal surges and helped convince city officials that sea level rise caused by climate change is no longer a problem that can be ignored.
“It was into my second year that I realized that my whole job and the organization was going to do this work,” Port of San Francisco executive director Elaine Forbes, who was appointed to her position in 2016 by then-Mayor Ed Lee, said beneath the Ferry Building’s broken clock tower, its hands fixed to either high noon or midnight as it undergoes repairs. “You’re on the line of defense.”
A semi-independent entity, the port oversees 7.5 miles of the city’s coastal facilities along the bay, leasing out a wide array of properties, including landmarks like Fisherman’s Wharf, Pier 39, the Ferry Building, a cruise ship terminal and Oracle Park, where the Giants play baseball. Its revenues are crucial to the city’s bottom line, and in 2018 Forbes mobilized her office to help ensure the passage of Prop A, a voter initiative that raised $425 million in taxpayer funds to begin addressing repairs and seismic upgrades to a 3-mile section of the city’s crumbling, more-than-100-year-old sea wall in anticipation of sea level rise.
“We said at the time, this is really a down payment for the problem,” Forbes recounted.
Since then, projections for how bad that problem will get have only become more dire. In 2020, the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the nonpartisan fiscal and policy adviser to the California Legislature, issued a report stating that under a scenario of continued high greenhouse gas emissions, San Francisco could see as much as 7 feet of sea level rise by 2100.
A graphic from a 2020 report by California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office.
In response to that grim new estimate, Forbes and the port’s commissioners announced last fall that they were partnering with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to conduct a comprehensive yearlong study examining how best to protect the vulnerable waterfront. Doing nothing, everyone seemed to agree, was not an option.
“The increased frequency of flooding that you’ll see as the bay comes up and you have more frequent tidal flooding, the numbers are in the billions in terms of the damages that will accumulate from that,” Brian Harper, a director of planning with the Army Corps, told Yahoo News.
But just as significant increases in sea level will result in monumental damages, adequately protecting communities from the additional rise will also become much more expensive. Complicating San Francisco’s efforts, the pandemic has badly diminished revenues from tourism and financial district foot traffic, forcing port officials to go hat-in-hand to city, state and federal entities in search of money to use to harden the coastline against rising waters.
“We’re not even at a scale to pretend to be able to pay for this project,” Forbes said. “We have a $114 million balance sheet, maybe a little higher. If we’re lucky, we have a $25 million capital budget that we squeeze out of our net revenues.”
While noting that any estimate on how much a fix will cost depends on what the Army Corps recommends in its report, Forbes speculates that the range could end up between $10 billion and $30 billion. Other experts, however, believe that guess could be too low.
Pier 14 in the Embarcadero district of San Francisco. (Getty Images)
“Projects like this have never, ever been built for the initial cost estimate,” said Peter Gleick, a climate scientist and the founder of Oakland’s Pacific Institute, which in 1990 conducted California’s first-ever report on how sea level rise would impact the Bay Area. “It’s not just sea level rise. It’s the big storm in addition to sea level rise that’s the issue. Seven feet of sea level rise is devastating, and then on top of that you have the extreme storm and then the king tides on top of 7 feet. That’s when the real damages are felt, and they’re felt long before they reach 7 feet.”
While many Americans still doubt the existence of climate change or whether climate change represents a threat serious enough to spend billions to address, coastal communities across the country have already begun heeding the wake-up call issued by scientists. San Francisco is just one of several U.S. cities to seek help from the Army Corps of Engineers in recent years. Others include Charleston, S.C., Miami and Boston. As the reality of the situation and the costs associated with it continue to sink in, more and more cash-strapped communities will no doubt seek federal assistance.
“Our standard cost sharing for flooding coastal projects is 65% federal, 35% local,” Harper said.
But federal money for projects designed and proposed by the Army Corps is by no means guaranteed.
A king tide washes up along the Embarcadero in San Francisco on Jan. 3, 2022. (Brontë Wittpenn/The San Francisco Chronicle via Getty Images)
“Each step of the way, we need an authorization from Congress and we need appropriation of funding to move to the next step,” Harper said. “Our steps are: Study it, design it, construct it and then operate it. So in each of those stages we would be going back to the Congress with an updated status of where we are and request for appropriation to move to the next stage.”
With the GOP back in the majority in the House of Representatives, it’s unclear how future requests for climate adaptability from the Corps will be received. Not a single Republican, after all, voted in favor of the Inflation Reduction Act, and many lawmakers who abhor large federal outlays have already begun looking for ways to kill its climate provisions. Yet much of the funding for hardening ports and waterfronts was allocated in the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, and Harper notes that the Corps continues to get approval for large projects.
“The administration incorporated authorization for all federal infrastructure agencies to specifically address climate resilience across the country, but [also] in urban settings like San Francisco and other large cities,” Harper said. “Some of this is still evolving and developing as federal agencies and their local and state counterparts figure out how to make those partnerships come together. The climate resilience aspect is continually evolving.”
Seeing the future
Kevin Costner in the 1995 movie “Waterworld.” (Ben Glass/Universal/Kobal/Shutterstock)
Of all the consequences of climate change, sea level rise has so far remained something of an abstraction for many in the general public. While the oceans have indeed risen by an average of 8 to 9 inches since the 1880s, that difference can seem laughable when compared with Hollywood’s dystopian portrayal of what the future will look like. “Waterworld,” set in the year 2500, envisioned a world in which the polar ice caps and glaciers have completely melted away and sea levels have risen by 24,000 feet.
Since the 1995 debut of that film, the U.S. Geological Survey has released its own estimate of what an ice-free world would mean, concluding that “global sea level would rise approximately 70 meters (approximately 230 feet), flooding every coastal city on the planet.”
Given the swift transition to renewable sources of energy over the past few years, that outcome may also turn out to be too pessimistic. But until we dramatically slow the burning of fossil fuels, the planet will almost certainly continue to warm, causing the seas to keep rising. Though today’s 8 to 9 inches of sea level rise may not seem headline-worthy, almost half of the amount (3.8 inches) has occurred since 1990, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). The pace of that rise, scientists predict, is poised to increase dramatically in the coming decades.
To better understand what multiple feet of additional sea level rise will mean for the nation’s coastlines, NOAA created its Sea Level Rise Viewer tool. When one toggles up to 7 feet of rise in San Francisco, Pier 39, Fisherman’s Wharf, Oracle Park and the $1.4 billion Chase Center, where the Golden State Warriors play basketball, are all shaded light blue, meaning they will be submerged in water. Forbes’s office on Pier 1, the Ferry Building next door and a good chunk of the financial district would also be permanently flooded, with access to multiple underground BART and Muni stations needing to be sealed off.
A screengrab from NOAA’s Sea Level Rise Viewer tool showing the San Francisco area with 10 feet of sea level rise.
But how seriously should people take the Legislative Analyst’s Office upper-end prediction?
“It’s based on very sophisticated model assumptions,” Gleick said. “There’s a range of estimates. We don’t know how fast the big ice masses on Greenland and Antarctica are going to destabilize, but 1 to 2 meters by 2100 is not out of the bounds of reality and what we can expect.”
The same year San Francisco voters passed Prop A with 82.7% of the vote in order to “protect $100 billion of assets and economic activity,” a poll from the University of California, Santa Barbara, found that 84% of area residents said they believed global temperatures were rising and would continue to do so, the highest number of any community in the U.S.
“It does help when they’re able to see the change. With flooding during a king tide they say, ‘Hey, this is different,’” Harper acknowledged. “But that doesn’t really capture the severity of what they’re going to see over a longer time frame.”
Like NOAA, the Army Corps has turned to visual aids to help residents understand what they will be up against, posting its own sea level rise viewer that overlays flooding depictions onto photos of urban areas.
“Here’s your downtown area. Here are buildings you should recognize because they’re in your community, and here’s what that future tidal event is going to look like,” Harper said.
If “Waterworld” was too fantastical, another sci-fi film, “Blade Runner 2049,” offered viewers a glimpse of something less abstract in scenes that featured a massive sea wall that shields Los Angeles from the encroaching ocean. That kind of utility-over-aesthetics approach has, despite the obvious drawbacks, been suggested in San Francisco to replace and dwarf the existing sea wall.
“We don’t just want to build a vertical wall. We could do that and just solve it, but that’s not good for anybody,” saidKevin Conger, president and founding partner of CMG Landscape Architecture, a San Francisco firm the port has hired to begin drawing up ideas for what a fortified sea wall would look like. “In order to adapt and hold the water back we need to elevate portions of the waterfront, but that causes another problem, which is inland flooding, because all the stormwater that’s running down by gravity is no longer going to be able to run out to the coast because you’ve elevated that edge.”
An aerial view of the Port of San Francisco shrouded in fog. (Getty Images)
Conger, Forbes and Harper all agree that whatever the final plan that emerges following the release of the Army Corps report, it should prioritize community access to the waterfront while preparing it for what’s ahead. To address the varying needs and limitations of the waterfront, the designs will include a mixture of solutions, including reinforcing and raising the existing sea wall; creating new parks that will help channel floodwaters; adding pumping stations; upgrading stormwater systems; elevating roadways, light rail tracks and even some buildings, and floodproofing the lower floors of many others; and, quite possibly, retreating from some areas altogether.
“Fundamentally, it’s looking at maintaining the line of defense, managing water, adapting with water or allowing water,” Forbes said. “There’s various alternatives that will work best in different locations along the waterfront.”
Despite the immense scale of the project, Conger stresses the long view.
“We get so sort of locked into a fear of change. But we’re always tinkering with our cities and changing things. For us to work on these projects, it’s not like we build them and walk away and we’re done, especially as landscape architects,” he said. “Our designs change constantly.”
In November, the Army Corps will present its draft to the public, inviting comments from a range of stakeholders before incorporating that feedback. Assuming congressional authorization follows suit, Harper said, the budgeting for design could come as soon as 2026.
“Depending on what the project is, design can be two to five years. Construction, again, can be two to five years. It will depend on what the specific project recommendation is coming out of the report, and it’s all subject to congressional action and administration support,” Harper said.
Calculating the final costs could itself be a years-long project. In surveys conducted by the port, for instance, San Francisco residents have prioritized elevating the 1898 Ferry Building to keep it above the rising waters. But lifting a three-story building that contains more than 200,000 square feet of office and commercial space and a 15-story clock tower won’t be cheap. Nor will be addressing possible groundwater contamination at Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, now an 866-acre federal Superfund site. Last June, a civil grand jury released a report that stated, “As the sea level rises, shallow groundwater near the shore rises with it, and can cause flooding, damage infrastructure, and mobilize any contaminants in the soil.” While the cleanup of buried radioactive soils is being overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency and state officials, the city is “poorly prepared,” the report said, for how sea level rise could cause the problem to spread into nearby lower-income neighborhoods.
San Francisco’s Ferry Building. (Getty Images)
All the coastal challenges facing San Francisco could become much more difficult depending on the precarious fate of the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica. In 2021, a study was published that concluded that the Florida-size glacier was at risk of collapse in the following five years. Already, Thwaites accounts for roughly 4% of global sea level rise annually, and its collapse would, in the short term, translate into 2 more feet of rise. Because Thwaites helps hold other glaciers in place, however, its destruction would result in a cascading catastrophe resulting in an additional 10 feet of sea level rise.
Of course, the contiguous 7.5-mile stretch operated by the Port of San Francisco is just one small part of the Bay Area coastline that will be impacted by sea level rise.
“You’re going to have to build sea walls around the Oakland airport, the San Francisco airport, and sea walls around San Jose,” Gleick said. “When we did our study there were 29 wastewater treatment plants that were vulnerable to a meter of sea level rise.”
Though Gleick notes that San Francisco has plenty of options when it comes to combating rising seas, many poorer and less well-situated places aren’t as lucky.
“I guess the whole point is, this is just a little hint of the huge costs that are going to be associated with climate change in general and sea level rise in particular if we don’t slow these [temperature] changes,” he added.
