Dear friends,
Much of our good news today shines through the context of big problems we still have to solve.
We have not ended new fossil fuel projects. . .yet. Nonetheless, it appears that the Biden administration is withholding approval of Calcasieu Pass (CP2), a new gas infrastructure project that was to be sited on Louisiana’s shoreline.
If it were to go forward, CP2 would ship as much as 24 metric tons of methane (also known as liquified natural gas) annually. Holding up the CP2 export terminal project is a warning sign for the 16 other proposed Gulf Coast terminals.
A former EPA official referred to the project as a “carbon mega-bomb.” Plans for the Department of Energy do a fresh assessment of its impact on climate change are likely to scuttle it.
This is a most welcome pause!
There’s another gas terminal project slated for the Rio Grande. The project poses similar risks to the environment and to the affected communities. Without insurance, the project can’t proceed.
Sign and personalize the letter to insurers to tell them not to insure the methane gas terminal, Rio Grande LNG.
The Supreme Court is preparing to dispatch yet another precedent. The Chevron Doctrine is named for a 1984 decision, in which the Court deferred to administrative determinations, recognizing that the expertise to implement legislation resides in rule-making agencies rather than courts.
On my favorite legal podcast, Strict Scrutiny, the hosts discussed a judicial power grab in the offing. This would be wildly impractical, clogging the courts with matters better left to agencies, and would cede power to lifetime appointees rather than administrators with specialized knowledge, who are answerable to elected officials.
In that troubling context is the good news that the Biden Administration has previewed new draft regulations designed to save consumers $3.5 billion a year by sharply reducing the fees that banks can charge on overdrawn accounts.
The new proposal would apply to banks with more than $10 billion in assets, allowing them to assess fees of between $3 and $14 to recover losses from overdrafts -- or more if they can provide cost data to show why this is justified.
The idea is that the charges should reflect the actual costs to the banks, rather than the current rate of $35. Since banks currently take in $12.6 billion in such fees annually, paid by more than 20 million households, this regulation could meaningfully affect more than 17.5 percent of American families.
Hopefully, book-banning hysteria will soon become a historical footnote to these strange times.
Judd Legum of Popular Information been tracking the dystopian doings and is now reporting a shifting tide. Legum reports that 11 individuals are behind more than half of the challenges to library books in the US.
There is legislation under consideration in Florida to allow school districts to assess processing fees when an individual raises multiple objections to materials. It even has Republican support.
Obviously, this is a good sign and kind of a dumb law. Legum suggests that real change will only come when the state repeals the legislation that DeSantis signed giving
residents the right to demand the removal of any library book that "depicts or describes sexual conduct," as defined under Florida law, whether or not the book is pornographic.
He notes that the law has been so sweeping that “books with unassailable literary and educational value” have been challenged. Part of the problem is that the challenge alone has resulted in removal of books from the shelves. Legum points to a constructive response elsewhere:
In Colorado, for example, new legislation would "require all materials to remain on shelves and accessible during a challenge" and mandate that "decisions made to the acquisition or removal of materials or displays cannot be discriminatory."
I appreciate Legum’s commitment to getting this story out. The fever may be breaking and there is still some mopping up to do in the war-on-woke wards.
Medical debt places a disproportionate burden on folks who are uninsured or under-insured. As the Deputy Mayor for Health and Human Services remarked,
"For hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers and for millions of Americans, medical debt creates anxiety, uncertainty, and stress. It weighs not only on individual and familial balance sheets, but may cause some to put off additional care and limits upward financial mobility.
She also noted that medical debt is a problem that must be addressed by systemic changes.
Support RIP Medical Debt and help lift the burden of debt from people’s shoulders right now.
A young woman in Portland, Oregon saved a baby from being electrocuted on a power line downed by an ice storm. The story is both an incredible tragedy — the baby’s parents and uncle died before Majiah Washington’s eyes — and a story of selfless courage.
Selfless courage is worthy of celebration, because we are all going to have to depend on the people around us.
And finally, speaking of celebrations: A few years ago, I rediscovered a holiday I’d forgotten about, Tu B’shvat. It is sometimes called the Jewish new year for the trees, although it is apparently really a celebration of fruit. As a lover of all of the signs of spring, this holiday works for me.
Tu B’shvat begins tonight. See if you can work these seven ‘most important’ fruits into the next 24 hours:
wheat / barley / olives / dates / grapes / figs / pomegranates
My source provided a mnemonic device that inspired me to create my own: We Believe Our Destiny is Global Friendship and Peace.
Also, feel free to sub in your favorites and write your own mnemonic, or not. No orthodoxy here. Eat the fruits and share them with others.
with love,
L