"Of course, Holtec is not only proceeding at its own risk, but is putting the Great Lakes State, and the entire Great Lakes Basin, at existential risk, of a Chornobyl- or Fukushima-level radioactive catastrophe," said Kevin Kamps, radioactive waste specialist at Beyond Nuclear, based in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

“It appears that Holtec could well already be rushing ahead with the sleeving of dangerously degraded steam generator tubes, even though our legal challenge against the adequacy of that proposed band-aid fix is still underway at the NRC licensing board,” said Wally Taylor, an attorney based in Cedar Rapids, Iowa representing the coalition.

“If Holtec is indeed already sleeving damaged steam generator tubes, this means the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board proceedings have been turned into a farce by NRC Staff’s complicity in the regulatory violations,” said Terry Lodge, an attorney based in Toledo, Ohio representing the coalition. “Holtec decides what to do, and when, while NRC maintains the mere illusion of regulation, and with a wink and nod, allows Holtec to proceed, in secret, despite our coalition’s official legal intervention opposing these dangerous shortcuts on safety,” Lodge added.

“Did NRC wait to publish the Palisades restart inspection report late on a Friday night, while we were busy meeting an entirely related deadline, hoping we would have less chance of noticing it?” asked Taylor.

Gundersen has previously testified in written declarations that the already degraded steam generators, in need of replacement for two decades, were made significantly worse by Holtec’s “rookie error” of neglecting to implement critical safety maintenance — wet layup — from 2022 to 2024, allowing corrosive chemical attack both inside and outside the exceedingly thin-walled steam generator tubes. Gundersen has also warned that a cascading failure of steam generator tubes could result in a reactor core meltdown, and catastrophic release of hazardous radioactivity into the environment.

Ironically, the coalition’s legal counsel were, at that very moment late Friday night, rebutting attacks on the coalition’s petition to intervene and request for hearings, regarding Holtec’s License Amendment Request (LAR) to the NRC, for permission to merely sleeve dangerously degraded steam generator tubes, rather than replace the steam generators in their entirety. The coalition had petitioned to intervene and requested a hearing on June 16, 2025. NRC Staff and Holtec then filed Answers, challenging the coalition’s petition and request. The coalition had until 11:59pm Eastern Time on Friday, July 18 to file its Reply to the Answers. The coalition met the deadline, defending its concerns regarding potentially dangerous operations to commence, potentially in the very near future, from using questionable repairs on its old, degraded steam generators, if NRC approves Holtec’s scheme.

The environmental coalition legally intervening against Holtec’s unprecedented, unneeded, exorbitantly expensive for the public, and extremely high risk for health, safety, and the environment, Palisades restart scheme includes: Beyond Nuclear, Don’t Waste Michigan, Michigan Safe Energy Future, Nuclear Energy Information Service of Chicago, and Three Mile Island Alert of Pennsylvania.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.

Legal experts and Māori advocates say the fight to protect Te Tiriti is only just beginning — as the controversial Treaty Principles Bill is officially killed in Parliament.

The bill — which seeks to redefine the principles of Te Tiriti o Waitangi — sparked a nationwide hīkoi and received more than 300,000 written submissions — with 90 percent of submitters opposing it.

Parliament confirmed the voting down of the bill yesterday, with only ACT supporting it proceeding further.

• READ MORE: The Treaty Principles Bill : Here’s what’s in it
• The Regulatory Standards Bill: What you need to know
• What you need to know about Māori wards
• Māori ward councillors prepare for election and referendum

The ayes were 11, and the noes 112.

Riana Te Ngahue, a young Māori lawyer whose bite-sized breakdowns of complex issues — like the Treaty Principles Bill — went viral on social media, said she was glad the bill was finally gone.

“It’s just frustrating that we’ve had to put so much time and energy into something that’s such a huge waste of time and money. I’m glad it’s over, but also disappointed because there are so many other harmful bills coming through — in the environment space, Oranga Tamariki, and others.”

Most New Zealanders not divided
Te Ngahue said the Justice Committee’s report — which showed 90 percent of submitters opposed the bill, 8 percent supported it, and 2 percent were unstated in their position — proved that most New Zealanders did not feel divided about Te Tiriti.

“If David Seymour was right in saying that New Zealanders feel divided about this issue, then we would’ve seen significantly more submissions supporting his bill.

“He seemed pretty delusional to keep pushing the idea that New Zealanders were behind him, because if that was true, he would’ve got a lot more support.”

However, Te Ngahue said it was “wicked” to see such overwhelming opposition.

“Especially because I know for a lot of people, this was their first time ever submitting on a bill. That’s what I think is really exciting.”

She said it was humbling to know her content helped people feel confident enough to participate in the process.

“I really didn’t expect that many people to watch my video, let alone actually find it helpful. I’m still blown away by people who say they only submitted because of it — that it showed them how.”

Te Ngahue said while the bill was made to be divisive there had been “a huge silver lining”.

“Because a lot of people have actually made the effort to get clued up on the Treaty of Waitangi, whereas before they might not have bothered because, you know, nothing was really that in your face about it.”

“There’s a big wave of people going ‘I actually wanna get clued up on [Te Tiriti],’ which is really cool.”

‘Fight isn’t over’
Māori lawyer Tania Waikato, whose own journey into social media advocacy empowered many first-time submitters, said she was in an “excited and celebratory” mood.

“We all had a bit of a crappy summer holiday because of the Treaty Principles Bill and the Regulatory Standards Bill both being released for consultation at the same time. A lot of us were trying to fit advocacy around summer holidays and looking after our tamariki, so this feels like a nice payoff for all the hard mahi that went in.”

She said the “overwhelming opposition” sent a powerful message.

“I think it’s a clear message that Aotearoa as a whole sees Te Tiriti as part of this country’s constitutional foundation. You can’t just come in and change that on a whim, like David Seymour and the ACT Party have tried to do.

“Ninety percent of people who got off their butt and made a submission have clearly rejected the divisive and racist rhetoric that party has pushed.”

Despite the win, she said the fight was far from over.

“If anything, this is really just beginning. We’ve got the Regulatory Standards Bill that’s going to be introduced at some point before June. That particular bill will do what the Treaty Principle’s Bill was aiming to do, but in a different and just more sneaky way.

‘The next fight’
“So for me, that’s definitely the next fight that we all gotta get up for again.”

Waikato, who also launched a petition in March calling for the free school lunch programme contract to be overhauled, said allowing the Treaty Principles Bill to get this far in the first place was a “waste of time and money.”

“Its an absolutely atrocious waste of taxpayers dollars, especially when we’ve got issues like the school lunches that I am advocating for on the other side.”

“So for me, the fight’s far from over. It’s really just getting started.”

ACT Party leader David Seymour continued to defend the Treaty Principles Bill during its second reading on Thursday, and said the debate over the treaty’s principles was far from over.

After being the only party to vote in favour of the bill, Seymour said not a single statement had grappled with the content of the bill — despite all the debate.

Asked if his party had lost in this nationwide conversation, he said they still had not heard a good argument against it.

‘We’ll never give up on equal rights.”

He said there were lots of options for continuing, and the party’s approach would be made clear before the next election

Eyes on local elections – ActionStation says the mahi continues
Community advocacy group ActionStation’s director Kassie Hartendorp, who helped spearhead campaigns like “Together for Te Tiriti”, said her team was feeling really positive.

“It’s been a lot of work to get to this point, but we feel like this is a very good day for our country.”

At the end of the hīkoi mō Te Tiriti, ActionStation co-delivered a Ngāti Whakaue rangatahi led petition opposing the Treaty Principles Bill, with more than 290,000 signatures — the second largest petition in Aotearoa’s history.

They also hosted a live watch party for the bill’s second reading on Facebook, joined by Te Tiriti experts Dr Carwyn Jones and Tania Waikato.

Hartendorp said it was amazing to see people from all over Aotearoa coming together to reject the bill.

“It’s no longer a minority view that we should respect, but more and more and more people realise that it’s a fundamental part of our national identity that should be respected and not trampled every time a government wants to win power,” she said.

Looking to the future, Hartendorp said Thursday’s victory was only one milestone in a longer campaign.

Why people fought back
“There was a future where this bill hadn’t gone down — this could’ve ended very differently. The reason we’re here now is because people fought back.

“People from all backgrounds and ages said: ‘We respect Te Tiriti o Waitangi.’

“We know it’s essential, it’s a part of our history, our past, our present, and our future. And we want to respect that together.”

Hartendorp said they were now gearing up to fight against essentially another version of the Treaty Principles Bill — but on a local level.

“In October, people in 42 councils around the country will vote on whether or not to keep their Māori ward councillors, and we think this is going to be a really big deal.”

The Regulatory Standards Bill is also being closely watched, Hartendorp said, and she believed it could mirror the “divisive tactics” seen with the Treaty Principles Bill.

“Part of the strategy for David Seymour and the ACT Party was to win over the public mandate by saying the public stands against Te Tiriti o Waitangi. That debate is still on,” she said.

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

This content originally appeared on Asia Pacific Report and was authored by APR editor.

Janine Jackson interviewed Good Jobs First’s Arlene Martinez about Amazon‘s subsidized misconduct for the December 6, 2024, episode of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

Jeff Bezos (CC photo: Daniel Oberhaus)

Janine Jackson: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.” So wrote Upton Sinclair in 1934. It’s hard not to think about that as we see corporate news media report on Amazon, whose leader is, of course, the owner of the Washington Post, but whose influence as retailer, landowner, policy shaper is multi-tentacled in ways you and I probably don’t even know.

That outsized, multi-front power is behind the resistance to Amazon, the urgent need to illuminate what a private company on this scale can do in the country and the world’s political, consumer, regulatory, labor ecosphere, and what needs to happen to address that power.

Arlene Martinez is deputy executive director and communications director at Good Jobs First. She joins us now by phone. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Arlene Martinez.

Arlene Martinez: Hi. Thanks for having me.

Good Jobs First (11/29/24)

JJ: You wrote recently, with colleagues, that the #MakeAmazonPay campaign was about calling attention to Amazon‘s

mistreatment of workers, disregard for consumers whose data it misuses, bullying of small local businesses and accelerating climate destruction, especially during the holiday shopping season.

That’s before we get to how we the people enable all of that through government subsidies, which we will talk about.

But first, let’s talk about some of the documented complaints and concerns about Amazon‘s day-to-day practices, the way they operate. Because it’s not about “hating them because they’re beautiful.” It’s not about jealousy because they built a better mousetrap. This is concern about things that just shouldn’t happen, period, right?

The Nation (5/2/24)

AM: That’s right. And I really liked the way that you opened up our conversation here, because it’s really hard to overstate just how powerful Jeff Bezos is, and how many areas Amazon is in, and the way that they run their business across all the different areas that they touch, how harmful it is, whether you’re talking about the environment, and all the data centers that they’re building as they capitalize on AI, artificial intelligence. Or the way that they are so punishing to workers that the injury rate is several times that of any other warehouse company. How they drive down wages wherever they locate. How they squeeze small businesses; a report from the Institute of Local Self-Reliance found that 45 cents of every dollar that a business made selling on the Amazon platform went to Amazon.

So I could just go on and on, but there are so many ways that Amazon harms the entire ecosystem of business worldwide. And one of the worst parts about it, and there are a lot of bad parts about it, is that we are subsidizing that, because communities are giving Amazon billions of dollars in direct cash payments. They don’t have to pay their taxes, or they’re given straight cash, or reduced land, whatever the case may be. And that doesn’t even begin to include the procurement and other public contracting money that they received. I’ll open there.

JJ: Well, and I want to get into that. I think for many folks, maybe they’ve heard about workers being cheated out of wages, but that is so crucial to the subsidy conversation. But let’s start with the fact that we do have evidence that Amazon is under-serving their workers, not just in terms of wages, but also in terms of health and safety, and what do we know about that?

Good Jobs First: Violation Tracker

AM: We run a database called Violation Tracker, where we look at over 450 regulatory agencies that we get data from, so we can begin to see part of Amazon‘s behavior toward its workers. We capture how much money Amazon has stolen from its workers, in the form of wages, and we also look at some health and safety violations.

One of the reasons that Amazon‘s dollar total is so much lower than, for example, Bank of America, which has billions and billions and billions of dollars in penalties and fines—Amazon‘s comparative total is so much lower because the federal agencies that are in charge of protecting workers only have the authority to give thousands of dollars in fines, versus a regulatory agency that oversees banks that can give billion dollars in fines in one single case. So what we see is, as bad as Amazon‘s record is, and it is bad, it would be worse if we treated workers with the same care and with the same concern that we do as investors who got cheated on an investment.

JJ: That’s so deep, because it speaks to, like, folks might want to get mad at a corporation, like Amazon, but then you also have to understand the weakening of the regulatory agencies that are meant to be addressing that. It’s not as simple as one might hope it would be. And folks have heard, for example, on this show, talking about the IRS saying, “We understand that rich people cheat more on their taxes than poor people, but it’s easier for us to go after poor people, because it’s much simpler.” And so a company like Amazon can just make things so complex, in a regulatory framework, that it’s very hard to address the harm that they’re doing. It’s kind of a big-picture problem.

Arlene Martinez: “So many of the issues with Amazon, and the reason that Amazon exists in the first place, is because we’ve lacked a lot of the regulatory mechanisms to contain it from ever becoming this big.”

AM: Yeah, that’s right. So many of the issues with Amazon, and the reason that Amazon exists in the first place, is because we’ve lacked a lot of the regulatory mechanisms to contain it from ever becoming this big. If, for example, some of the antitrust legislation had been implemented and upheld, Amazon never might have been able to grow to this size. That’s why it’s been so promising in recent years to see the FTC and Lina Khan really take on corporate giants like Amazon, which have essentially become monopolies and dominate entire spaces. So it really is a big structural issue.

I get asked a lot about, should people just not shop on Amazon? Well, that would be nice. I mean, I don’t shop on Amazon, but that isn’t the answer. Like I said, it would be nice, but the answer is really these structural problems that enabled Amazon to get so big in the first place. And these regulatory agencies need to flex their muscle to make sure that Amazon is broken up, or contained, or not allowed to dominate entire industries and sectors the way that it is.

And you’ve probably seen it’s moving into even more areas. Now it’s going into chips, and now it’s going into pharmacies and healthcare. And its goal is to dominate the world, and it’s headed there without some proper agency there flexing their muscle to rein it in.

JJ: I wanted to pull you out on one question, which is data centers, which is, we hear, and folks at the local media level may hear, Amazon‘s coming in, and they’re going to locate here, and that’s going to provide jobs. And sometimes what they’re talking about is data centers. Why don’t data centers equal jobs? Can you talk a little bit about that?

ProPublica (8/4/24)

AM: Data centers are essentially huge warehouses that just store big, basically, server farms. They’re just running data all the time, and there’s very few people that are needed to actually staff these facilities. So they don’t create many jobs, because there aren’t many functions that are required as part of these data centers. I mean, there’s the construction phase, and then a few dozen people that are needed to staff them.

And yet they’re getting what’s often several million dollars per job. We did a study in 2016 that looked at the average for the Apples, the Googles, the Amazons, the Metas, was about $2 million per job. But we’ve seen a lot of cases now where it’s a lot higher per job, and a community can never make that money back.

But I think the other question, too, and I think what gets missing from a lot of stories that I see about data centers, is why data centers are getting subsidized in the first place. When you think about what an incentive was supposed to even do in the first place, it was to spur something to happen that wouldn’t otherwise happen.

We know that AI is the future. These companies are racing to build data centers, because they have to, to remain competitive. So there is absolutely no business case to be subsidizing companies to build a data center, especially considering the low job return.

Nonprofit Quarterly (8/7/24)

JJ: In this deep piece about corporate government giveaways, you cite Neil deMause, who is a FAIR favorite, who, with Joanna Cagan, wrote Field of Schemes about subsidizing sports teams’ building of new arenas, and it’s kind of a familiar template, where folks say we’re going to bring in profit, and yet it’s something that would happen anyway. There’s kind of a—it’s not even a bait and switch, it’s just misinformation that is put forward to cities, when something like a sports team, or something like an Amazon, says, “We’re going to bring a lot of stuff to your community, and therefore you should subsidize our taxes.”

And some of us are like: “Well, wait, you’re a business. You’re going to make a profit here. Why would we subsidize it?” There’s kind of a big-picture misunderstanding here.

AM: Yeah, and part of it is that it just becomes irresistible for a lot of politicians to have the opportunity to stand next to a Jeff Bezos, or some other high-ranking official, or a billionaire owner of a sports team. And then you have access to these box-level seats that you couldn’t afford on your own. And all of that is really irresistible. So there’s really a very human element to giving subsidies that are proven to not drive economic development, like a stadium, which study after study has shown does nothing to improve the lives of residents in that community, but it just becomes very irresistible.

And I think on a local level, too, with someone—I was a reporter for many years, covering a lot of city council meetings and school board meetings, and knowing that these council members, most of them who are part-time, get a few hundred dollars a month in pay, they want to do good for their community, and they think bringing in an Amazon is a good move for their community, without realizing what they’re really doing is bringing in a company that hurts their workers, pays them very little and damages their existing small businesses in their community. But they’re thinking they’re doing a good thing.

JJ: Well, and part of it is a kind of numerical thing where media talk about, “Well, these folks will pay this money in taxes,” and that makes it sound like it’s a profit. There’s kind of a basic math problem that sometimes happens here. When you talk about tax breaks to be given to whatever entity, media can sometimes present that as though that’s money that’s going into the tax coffers, which is not what’s happening.

Nonprofit Quarterly (8/3/22)

AM: That’s right. I mean, there’s a lot of companies that really profit based on the size of the incentive. There are a lot of site location consultants, for example. The bigger the subsidy, the more their percentages. So their drive is to get the biggest subsidy possible, even though it isn’t in the best interest of their community.

JJ: Subsidies are sold to communities as profit, as though it’s going to be money, somehow, that’s going to go right into the community, when that’s not the way it plays out.

AM: Yes, and this is a big issue in our space, in terms of the media coverage that we often see. It’s because you get what are called “economic impact reports,” and I say “economic impact” in quotes because it isn’t actual economic impact, and it’s nowhere close to being a cost/benefit analysis. What it does is it takes this big, big smorgasbord of everything, every dollar that’s spent on construction phase, or supply chain, or the entire salary sometimes of a worker is included in this economic impact report. And a lot of times you have no idea what’s actually in there, because the people who produced it say it’s proprietary, and they won’t give it to the public.

And a lot of times, those people that are hired to produce the economic impact report, and we see this a lot in the stadium space, are people who are working for the team owners, or who are working for Amazon, they will be the ones producing these economic impact reports. So you have a real conflict of interest that I think is missed sometimes in the reporting, and just makes these studies bogus.

When I talk to reporters about how to cover and report on economic development incentives, I tell them to ask for everything that went into that economic impact report. And if they don’t release it, then don’t include their numbers, and say that they won’t give it to you.

JJ: That gets right to the point of transparency, which I just wanted to ask you about. I think that, whether you understand an issue or don’t, transparency about what’s happening ought to be ground zero. And yet that is difficult to get from some corporations, and also from some government agencies. But journalists should have that as a basic fundamental.

AM: Yes. And we also run these databases called Amazon Tracker and Subsidy Tracker, and both of them look at companies that have received subsidies. And you’ll see, among Amazon subsidies, and also Subsidy Tracker, which is broader, you’ll see a lot of entries that say “undisclosed,” because even though a company is getting public money, they’re not releasing the value of that subsidy. Reporters should insist on that, and make it really clear in stories when they’re not getting it.

Real News Network (7/22/23)

JJ: And I’ll end on that. But I will say that, obviously, I’m angry about media for my job, but it’s not that they don’t do critical stories sometimes; it’s this connecting of the dots. So when I see a storyline that says that Amazon or Walmart is a “successful business,” and then I see another story that says, oh yeah, a lot of their workers still need to rely on public assistance to not starve. But then on the other page, I’m still reading Amazon as a “successful business.” So I feel like at a certain point, it’s not about there’s never any good stories or critical stories. It’s about a failure to connect the dots, to say, “What does it mean for a company to be ‘successful’ right now, and what harm is required to get to that?”

AM: Those are all such great points, and it’s true that we have seen a lot of really amazing reporting around Amazon, and Bloomberg is the outlet that reported about how Amazon was driving down wages in the warehouse sector, because they took an industry-wide look, and were able to see that anytime Amazon entered a community, wages dropped for the entire sector, including non-Amazon workers.

And the Morning Call in Allentown, Pennsylvania, wrote one of the first stories, 12 years ago, to report on ambulances being placed outside of Amazon warehouses, rather than Amazon investing in air conditioning and heating for their workers. So they were getting ill from heat exhaustion.

So there has been a lot of amazing reporting, but I think you’re right in connecting all those dots, it’s very hard to see. And when Amazon releases a press release about how they gave a $500,000 loan, reporters repeat that as if it’s some gift, even though it might not include the fact that Amazon got a billion dollars in that same community as a subsidy. So it is a mixed bag.

JJ: I appreciate the bright critical spots. I’m upset about the fact that it doesn’t seem to get stirred into an understanding of what we, as a democratic society, should ask from corporations, and why do we call a company “successful” whose workers need to rely on public assistance? There’s some kind of connected story that’s not happening there.

ProMarket (5/30/17)

AM: I’ll just add, I remember as a reporter—and I was a reporter for many years—I was very fixated on holding government accountable. Really felt like that was a big role of mine, and I spent a lot less energy thinking about holding corporations accountable. And now that I’ve left the space, and I’m in this nonprofit watchdog space, and a lot of my work involves corporate governance, and overseeing their practices, I really see those gaps even more stark, and how, in general, I think journalists don’t do the best job about covering companies, and we could do a lot better, which is why I think shows like yours are so helpful, why I hope organizations like ours are useful, so that we start putting the same kind of scrutiny on corporations that we have long done on governments.

JJ: I will just add, we hope for journalists to look to see critically powerful actors, and those powerful actors are in corporations, and they’re in government. And then here’s us, we the people, and that’s where we would look for journalists to look out for the public interest, however that is affected by whatever forces are in power, and that’s why I appreciate your work.

AM: Thank you so much.

JJ: We’ve been speaking with Arlene Martinez. She’s deputy executive director and communications director at Good Jobs First. You can find their extensive work on Amazon and other corporate and government accountability on GoodJobsFirst.org. Arlene Martinez, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

AM: Thanks for having me, and thanks for your work.

This content originally appeared on FAIR and was authored by Janine Jackson.

“Taliban officials must immediately reverse their decision to suspend the broadcast licenses of 14 active media outlets in Nangarhar province that collectively reach millions of people,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ Asia program coordinator. “The Taliban continues to exert pressure on media outlets to control their programming and broadcasting operations in Afghanistan. They must cease these tactics and allow the independent media to operate freely.”

The order also stipulated that the outlets must renew their licenses and pay any outstanding fees or risk having all the outlet’s licenses revoked, according to CPJ’s review of the order, the exiled Afghanistan Journalists Center watchdog group, and a journalist who spoke to CPJ on the condition of anonymity. 

ATRA is a regulatory body that operates as part of the Taliban’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

Outlets with suspended radio and TV licenses: 

• Hamisha Bahar Radio and TV
• Sharq 
• Arzasht 

Radio networks affected: 

• The Nan
• Radio Safa
• Meena 
• Radio Dost
• Mazal
• Manar
• Muram
• Haqiqat 
• Hood 
• Spinghar
• Ulfat

CPJ’s text messages to Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid for comment did not receive a reply.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Friday approved a power grab by corporate interests who want to strip federal agencies of their power to regulate public health, the climate and environment, worker protection and more. In the 6-3 ruling, the court’s conservative majority overturned a precedent known as the Chevron doctrine that stems from a Reagan-era ruling called Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, which established that judges should defer to federal agencies on interpreting a law if Congress did not specifically address the issue. We speak with Mustafa Ali, former head of the environmental justice program at the Environmental Protection Agency, who describes it as “a very devastating decision,” and to The Nation's justice correspondent, Elie Mystal. “It's taking power out of our hands, out of the democracy’s hands, and putting it in the hands of the court,” says Mystal, who also addresses other recent rulings from the court at the end of its term, including the highly anticipated ruling on presidential immunity.

This content originally appeared on Democracy Now! and was authored by Democracy Now!.

American Chestnut tree near Tremont Falls, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, circa 1920. Photo: NPS.

On December 8^th, the American Chestnut Foundation (TACF) announced it was withdrawing support “for several pending regulatory petitions that would authorize distribution of transgenic Darling 58 trees outside permitted research plots”. The announcement was shocking, one that should have huge implications for the idea of releasing GMOs into the wild.

TACF, in league with the State University of New York Environmental School of Forestry (SUNY-ESF) has been publicly stating that it can restore the dominance of the American chestnut, which was decimated by logging and blight, with a genetically engineered version called Darling 58 (D58). They claimed D58 was engineered with a wheat gene inserted into its genome to enable it to resist the blight. It was a high-profile venture intended (the petition is still pending) to deregulate, for the first time, a GE plant for release into the wild to contaminate its wild relatives, something Dr. Donald Davis, an expert on the history of the American Chestnut, called “a massive and irreversible experiment.”

More recent statements by TACF have revealed that it was not merely because of “significant performance limitations” of the Darling progeny that TACF has withdrawn its support but also because they have been working with the wrong GE Tree. The TACF press release explained that “a significant identity error in the propagation materials supplied to TACF” had occurred, and that “independent confirmation now shows all pollen and trees used for this research was derived not from Darling 58.” Throughout the regulatory process, no one noticed that they were working with the wrong tree.

Not since Cold Fusion has so much scientific hype been generated around a fundamental error. Frankly, it strains credulity that the Federal government was so close to making such a monumental, precedent-setting regulatory decision based upon misinformation. This should call into question any and all claims by SUNY-ESF about their GE tree research and disqualify this and future petitions by them.

The Campaign to STOP GE Trees has, for years, argued that the Darling 58 is a Trojan Horse– an iconic tree used to reduce public opposition to GE trees, and to support approval for other more commercial applications of the technology. Despite the shocking admission by TACF that their Darling 58 is not what they claimed, this regulatory threat still exists, and the Campaign to STOP GE Trees will remain vigilant until the USDA pulls the plug on this ill-conceived experiment.

Benefiting from the public relations efforts of SUNY-ESF, TACF and other pro-GMO organizations, headlines in small newspapers to giants such as the New York Times considered the project as a fait accompli giving scientific concerns raised by organizations such as ours tertiary acknowledgement.

So ubiquitous was the praise for the D58 that a recent headline stated, “ESF scientist who brought back American chestnut tree from the brink of extinction has died”. The story was a well-meaning memorial to the scientist who headed the D58 project, yet it exemplifies how the press overstated the success of the D58. With TACF officially withdrawing its support for the D58, it is now the responsibility of those outlets to let the public know that the unparalleled support for the GE tree was misplaced and that the silvicultural messiah was less than all that.

We will continue to echo the warnings of scientists who urge caution, such as TACF’s former staff geneticist, Dr. Paul Sisko who said that there needs to be 50 years of testing prior to release given that the trees are long-lived organisms. Sisko also expressed concern that since only young trees were tested they do not know whether these genes will have unintended side effects on the trees, or the organisms that interact with the trees as they mature.

In fact, one the reasons TACF stated for withdrawing its support was poor performance as the trees matured. This underscores the impossible task of understanding the impacts of introducing long-lived organisms into the wild- not to mention researching the wrong variant.

As the promise of the Darling 58 withers on the proverbial vine, it should be a cautionary tale of publicity-driven science as well as a wakeup call to our collapsing regulatory environment and our agencies’ inherent inability to regulate proposals to release genetically engineered long-lived organisms into the wild.

The post The Tree That Never Was: the Latest Sign of Our Collapsing Regulatory Ecosystem appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Steve Taylor.

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On July 20, Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb introduced in the lower house of parliament a draft bill amending the ordinance governing the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), the country’s broadcast regulator, according to news reports.

The bill would empower the regulator to oversee the dissemination of “authentic news” and prohibit media organizations from spreading “disinformation,” a loosely defined clause that the nongovernmental Human Rights Commission of Pakistan warned “strays into censorship territory.”

On Wednesday, the National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, passed the PEMRA amendment bill, which will be moved to the Senate. The federal cabinet has approved two other draft bills and is soon expected to introduce them in parliament. Another bill, which would amend the 2016 Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), is pending cabinet approval.  Local journalists and rights groups fear that these bills would entrench measures to undermine data security and free expression online before Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif’s government is dissolved later this month. The bills would provide sweeping powers to the incoming caretaker government, which Sharif’s ruling coalition and the military are both seeking to control.

“We are alarmed by the Pakistan government’s apparent attempts to bulldoze four draft bills undermining press freedom through parliament ahead of the political transition scheduled for later this month,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “There needs to be a substantive debate on the bills and their far-reaching impacts. Pakistan’s lawmakers must ensure ample time to review the draft bills in consultation with civil society and journalists before coming to a vote.”

Sharif has proposed that parliament be dissolved on August 9, before handing over power to a caretaker administration, paving the way for a general election.

CPJ has documented numerous press freedom violations in Pakistan since former Prime Minister Imran Khan was ousted from power in April 2022, resulting in an ongoing political crisis. Mainstream news channels have ceased coverage of Khan following a de facto ban and pressure from the military.

On July 26, the federal cabinet approved two of the draft bills, the E-Safety Bill 2023 and the Personal Data Protection Bill 2023, paving the way for a parliamentary vote.

The E-Safety Bill would establish a new regulatory body responsible for registering and monitoring news websites, including those already operated by media outlets, as well as online channels, including those on YouTube. The agency would be empowered to take notice of and impose penalties for alleged cybercrime violations, including publishing “false” news, which the Pakistan Digital Editors Alliance, a local journalists’ association, warns could be used to stifle free speech.

The Personal Data Protection Bill would mandate data localization within Pakistan for companies, including social media platforms. The bill provides for “sensitive personal data” to be handed over to the Pakistan government on grounds of “public order” or “national security,” which may compromise journalists’ privacy, according to a May draft of the bill and Farieha Aziz, a freelance journalist and co-founder of the digital rights organization Bolo Bhi, who spoke with CPJ by phone.

Separately, the government is set to introduce a series of amendments to PECA and the country’s social media rules, establishing a prison term of five years and a fine of 1 million rupees (US$3,484) for disseminating “fake or false information” online.

The amendments would empower the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority to order social media companies to block or remove content that “incites or is likely to incite [the] public,” is “known to be fake or false,” or “contains aspersions against the judiciary or armed forces of Pakistan.” Social media companies deemed non-compliant could have their services blocked or restricted. 

CPJ has repeatedly documented how the PECA has been used to detain and harass journalists for their work.

It remains unclear when these three bills will be brought to a vote in parliament, Aziz told CPJ.

The PEMRA amendment bill defines “disinformation” as “verifiably false” information disseminated with the intention to “cause harm to the reputation of or to harass any person for political, personal, or financial interest…without making an effort to get other person’s point of view or not giving [that view] proper coverage.”

Aziz and other journalists have expressed concern about that definition, with Aziz saying it could encourage powerful figures to withhold comment and curb the media’s ability to publish critical stories. The draft bill also increases the fine for violations from 1 million rupees to 10 million rupees (US$34,837).

Afzal Butt, president of the Pakistan Federal Union of Journalists, told the newspaper Dawn that he believes broadcasters and the journalists’ union should be able to vote on decisions by PEMRA, which has a history of suspending broadcasters and censoring their content. The draft amendment introduced to parliament grants the union and local broadcasters one non-voting representative each at the agency.

CPJ called and messaged Aurangzeb for comment but did not receive any replies.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

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After decades of intense debate and stalled legislation, the Food and Drug Administration has taken a critical step in overseeing a vast category of lab tests that reach patients without any federal agency checking to ensure they work the way their makers claim.

Among the tests that are not reviewed by the FDA: popular prenatal genetic screenings that ProPublica recently reported on, as well as certain cancer screenings and tests for rare diseases.

On Wednesday, a notice of the proposed rule was posted. This is the first concrete evidence that the FDA is preparing to apply its regulatory powers to these lab tests.

“A modern oversight framework that is specifically tailored to assuring tests work is critical to position ourselves for the future — whether it is preparing for the next pandemic or realizing the full potential of diagnostic innovation,” an FDA press officer said in a statement to ProPublica.

Peter Lurie, president and executive director of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, applauded the move. “It’s exciting to see the agency taking concrete steps to address this long-standing hole in the public health safety net,” he said.

The agency’s hands-off approach to lab-developed tests — which are designed, manufactured and used by a single lab — traced back to a time when they were deployed at a small scale. The idea was to spare hospital labs, for example, from the time, money and hassle of getting approval in Washington whenever they needed to create a simple test for their own patients.

Nowadays, so-called LDTs are an enormous part of the health care system, including a number of high-stakes tests made by commercial companies. Because they aren’t registered with the federal government, nobody knows how many exist. A 2021 study by Pew Charitable Trusts estimates that 12,000 labs are likely to use such tests, many of which process thousands of patient samples each day. Currently, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services reviews lab operations, but it doesn’t check whether the tests themselves are clinically valid.

While these tests “play an important role in our health care system,” said the FDA press officer, the agency “is very concerned about problematic LDTs currently used in the U.S. that might not provide patients with accurate and reliable results.”

ProPublica’s investigation of prenatal genetic screenings detailed how the FDA doesn’t review the tests before they reach patients, nor does it verify marketing claims made by companies that sell them. False positives, false negatives and uncertain results about genetic anomalies have sometimes led to devastating consequences for families, the investigation found. Companies aren’t required to publicly report instances of when the test gets it wrong, and no federal agency is able to recall faulty tests. (We also made a guide to prenatal screening tests for expectant parents.)

The next step for the FDA is to publish a draft of the proposed rule, which seems likely to happen in August. It will go through a public comment period, and then the agency will develop a final rule. Both the proposed and final rules need to be cleared by the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Management and Budget. Experts said this process could go relatively quickly, or it could take a year or more, pushing up against a 2024 election that might change priorities in Washington.

Over the years, a large coalition of labs, professional associations and academic medical centers have argued that FDA oversight over the lab tests would be overly burdensome and inflexible — so much so that it would stunt critical innovations and limit patient access to quality health care. Opponents also express concern about the FDA’s capacity to oversee the tests.

Mary Steele Williams, executive director of the Association for Molecular Pathology, said in a statement to ProPublica that AMP is updating its proposal for an alternative approach to lab testing reform, one that doesn’t rely on the FDA. Instead, it recommends modernizing existing regulations through CMS, “which we believe to be the most effective and streamlined approach.”

Williams also said that AMP intends to continue working with other institutions to “raise our shared concerns with FDA regulation” over lab-developed tests. It remains committed, she said, “to working with Congress and other stakeholders to establish a more efficient regulatory framework that ensures high-quality patient care while continuing to foster the rapid innovation and promise of new diagnostic technologies.”

An earlier effort by the FDA to rein in LDTs came in 2014, when the agency issued draft guidance. But after facing nearly two years of stiff opposition, the agency pulled it. One of the strongest critics was the American Clinical Laboratory Association, a national trade group. It challenged the FDA’s authority over the tests by filing a citizen petition and making clear its intent to sue if necessary.

In a statement on Wednesday to ProPublica, an ACLA spokesperson said the association has long taken the position that any regulation of LDTs must be done through legislation. It should be a framework “that recognizes the essential role of clinical laboratories in advancing public health, preserving and fostering innovation and maintaining access to critical testing services,” the spokesperson said, adding: “We stand ready to provide expertise and technical assistance to Congress.”

There have been several efforts to reform lab testing through Congress over the years, and the FDA has signaled that it welcomes legislative action that would create a modern framework specifically tailored to clinical testing.

In 2022, a bipartisan bill known as the VALID Act seemed to have its best shot at passing, having gathered momentum after the scandal over fraudulent Theranos blood tests and the coronavirus pandemic. But, facing pushback, it was dropped from a must-pass bill at the end of the year. While ACLA’s spokesperson said the association worked with the bill’s sponsors to help shape it, in the end, ACLA didn’t endorse it. The act was reintroduced in the House in March.

If the FDA enacts a new rule, supporters anticipate legal challenges, said Cara Tenenbaum, a former policy adviser for the agency whose consultancy signed onto a recent letter urging it to assert oversight.

But over the past decade, the FDA tried every alternative to address what it sees as a public health problem, she said.

“All they have left is their existing device authority,” Tenenbaum said. “They’ve been backed into a corner, if you ask me.”

The FDA pushing ahead with a proposed rule, even while legislation is on the table, makes sense because “the clock is ticking on the administration,” said Lurie, a former top FDA official who worked on lab testing reform.

At the same time, he said, “the problem is long-standing and, frankly, in fact, growing. More and more products come to market every day, and very few of them get regulated.”

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Anna Clark.

Climate groups called out U.S. President Joe Biden's administration on Thursday after a federal agency gave a green light to three liquefied natural gas projects in Texas despite local opposition and scientists' calls to swiftly transition away from fossil fuels.

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC)—which has two Democrats, two Republicans, and one vacancy—issued orders on Glenfarne's Texas LNG project, NextDecade's Rio Grande LNG export terminal, and Enbridge's related Rio Bravo Pipeline.

"This president has the gall to say he cares about environmental justice and the climate emergency."

In response to the moves, Greenpeace USA campaigner Destiny Watford pointed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report released last month as well as projections from the International Energy Agency (IEA).

"Someone needs to show President Biden the latest IPCC report, where it clearly says that we need to move away from dirty energy sources like LNG if we want to keep our planet livable," Watford declared. "U.S. LNG export capacity is on track to exceed the IEA's net-zero emissions estimate for global LNG trade by 2030."

"This is a level that we cannot overstep if we want to avoid the worst impacts of climate change—and the U.S. could pass that mark by itself," she stressed. "The stunning amount of new LNG export deals being approved underscores the climate hypocrisy of the Biden administration. This president has the gall to say he cares about environmental justice and the climate emergency while continuing to sanction limitless production and export of oil and gas."

FERC's moves follow the Biden administration's recent approval of an LNG project in Alaska, which came on the heels of allowing ConocoPhillips' controversial Willow oil project in the state. The president is also under fire for last weekend's Group of Seven statement that leaves the door open to future gas investments.

Oil Change International U.S. program co-manager Allie Rosenbluth argued Thursday that "the approval of any new fossil fuel project is a failure of the Biden administration's stated commitment to take action on both climate change and environmental justice."

"It's bad for the communities in Brownsville and the Rio Grande Valley who will suffer the worst consequences of this massive industrial plant on their health and well-being, it's bad for our country as laggards to climate commitments, and it's bad for our planet, as the clock is ticking to stave off the worst climate disasters," she said of FERC's new orders.

"Industry false solutions, such as carbon capture and certified gas, are making these projects even more dangerous," Rosenbluth continued, highlighting that "the company behind Rio Grande LNG claims it will 'certify' the greenhouse gas intensity of LNG to be sold from the proposed export terminal."

Citing a new report from Oil Change International and Earthworks on gas certifiers, the campaigner explained:

The investigation uncovered failures with monitoring technology, documented the concerns of methane emissions experts, revealed an absence of data transparency, and exposed conflicts of interest. Furthermore, the report detailed how the gas and LNG industry cannot rely on simply cleaning up to align with climate goals. They must also plan for a phaseout [of] gas production. This evidence calls into question the degree to which the gas certification process is misleading gas markets, giving consumers and investors a false sense of security about the environmental impacts of methane gas.

In Texas, "the fight is far from over," Rosenbluth said. "This March, after years of trans-Atlantic organizing, French bank Société Générale withdrew from Rio Grande LNG and no final investment decision on the LNG terminal has been made. People around the world will continue to fight these projects and demand a just transition to renewable energy."

The Houston Chroniclereported Thursday that Glenfarne's LNG project "has less financial traction" than NextDecade's terminal.

The newspaper also flagged a disagreement between FERC's two Democratic commissioners:

In August, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled FERC needed to more closely examine Rio Grande LNG's impact on climate change and local communities. Commissioner Allison Clements said the commission had failed to do what was requested of it and that moving forward without doing so creates "a lose-lose situation" that would invite more legal challenges and deprive potentially impacted communities of the chance to comment on the developments.

"This procedural corner-cutting represents a gobsmacking departure, frankly, from the lessons I took away from the environmental justice roundtable we held just a month ago," Clements said.

FERC Chairman Willie Phillips, viewed as more moderate on climate issues than his predecessor Richard Glick, said he thought the commission had reached "an appropriate middle ground."

"Importantly, today's order takes an unprecedented and bipartisan step to protect environmental justice communities from potential concerns about the project's effect on air quality," Phillips said. "The commission is for the first time on its own accord, requiring that the project sponsors ensure that the overlapping construction and operation of a project do not cause any significant air quality impacts on environmental justice communities."

Phillips is notably a Biden appointee. When the president selected him in September 2021, green groups sounded the alarm, given his record in government and as a private attorney, and branded the candidate as "a crony of the fossil fuel industry."

Carrizo Comecrudo Tribal Chairman Juan Mancias said Thursday that "the court sent Rio Grande LNG and Texas LNG back to FERC for a review because these gas projects are cutting corners to try and build on our sacred lands. FERC did a piss-poor job, once again, of reviewing the dangers that LNG will bring to our people: pollution, risks of explosions, and destruction of our sacred sites."

"Neither FERC nor the LNG companies have ever consulted with the Carrizo Comecrudo Tribe of Texas," Mancias added. "FERC is promoting and perpetuating the sacrifice zones that come with short-sighted colonialism."

"We are disappointed, but unfortunately not surprised, that FERC has failed us again."

The tribe is far from alone in opposing the projects. Sierra Club Gulf Coast campaign representative Rebekah Hinojosa said that "for nearly a decade, our community has made it clear to FERC that we oppose Rio Grande LNG, Rio Bravo Pipeline, and Texas LNG because this is environmental racism," but the agency and industry "are forcing dangerous gas plants on the Rio Grande Valley that do nothing to help our community so fossil fuel corporations can profit."

"We are disappointed, but unfortunately not surprised, that FERC has failed us again by conducting a haphazard review of Texas LNG and Rio Grande LNG and by deciding to move forward with these destructive gas projects that will destroy some of our remaining wildlife habitat, be the biggest polluters in our poor community, and raise energy prices for families across the country," she said.

"We're not backing down," Hinojosa vowed. "FERC will hear our outrage."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

The Federal Reserve was the primary regulator of both Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, whose back-to-back collapses sparked panic in financial markets and concerns about cascading impacts on the U.S. economy.

But despite immediate questions about the possible supervisory failures that allowed the banks' crises to fester, Fed Chair Jerome Powell personally intervened over the weekend to block any mention of regulatory slipups in a joint statement on the federal government's response to the situation.

The New York Timesreported late Thursday that some Biden administration officials "wanted to include that lapses in bank regulation and supervision had contributed to the problems that helped fell" Silicon Valley Bank, whose collapse marked the second-largest bank failure in U.S. history.

But Powell, an ex-investment banker originally nominated by former President Donald Trump, "pushed to take the line on regulation out of the statement because he wanted to focus on the actions being taken to shore up the financial system," according to the Times, which cited an unnamed person familiar with the matter.

The resulting statement issued Sunday by the Fed, the Treasury Department, and the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) appeared to conform to Powell's demand, not mentioning what Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and watchdogs have described as glaring failures in supervision by the central bank.

The joint statement vaguely highlights "reforms that were made after the financial crisis that ensured better safeguards for the banking industry"—but neglects to mention that the Fed and Congress rolled back some of those rules in subsequent years, decisions that experts say set the stage for SVB and Signature Bank's collapse.

"That sounds a lot like putting the institutional interests of Fed and personal interests of the chair above financial stability," Americans for Financial Reform (AFR) said in response to news of Powell's intervention, which—according toThe American Prospect's David Dayen—ended up delaying the release of the statement for "an indeterminate period of time."

Dayen also reported Friday that the Fed "tried to influence" President Joe Biden's statement on the bank failures and bailout that followed.

Jeff Hauser, director of the Revolving Door Project, wrote on Twitter that "Biden should have never renominated Powell," calling the Fed chair "an abomination."

While Biden's Sunday statement doesn't specifically mention regulatory failures, the president—who renominated Powell in late 2021—said in prepared remarks the following day that "there are important questions of how these banks got into these circumstances in the first place."

"During the Obama-Biden administration, we put in place tough requirements on banks like Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, including the Dodd-Frank Law, to make sure the crisis we saw in 2008 would not happen again," Biden said. "Unfortunately, the last administration rolled back some of these requirements. I'm going to ask Congress and the banking regulators to strengthen the rules for banks to make it less likely that this kind of bank failure will happen again and to protect American jobs and small businesses."

Biden was referring to a 2018 measure passed by the then-Republican-controlled Congress with the support of dozens of Democrats—and with a public endorsement from Powell.

Emboldened by the Republican-authored law—which weakened regulations for banks with between $50 billion and $250 billion in assets—the Fed under Powell's leadership proceeded to go well beyond the measure's mandates "by relaxing regulatory requirements for domestic banking institutions that have assets in the $250 to $700 billion range," then-central bank governor Lael Brainard noted in October 2018.

Brainard went on to caution, presciently, that the Fed's deregulatory actions would "weaken the buffers that are core to the resilience of our system" and result in "increased risk to financial stability and the taxpayer."

"Make no mistake: your decisions aided and abetted this bank failure, and you bear your share of responsibility for it."

As Dayen wrote Friday, "Silicon Valley Bank had billions in unrealized losses on its balance sheet that it hoped to avoid having to surface."

"It also had a tightly correlated, mostly uninsured depositor base, all largely from one industry and connected to each other, that represented significant flight risk if there were any signs of trouble," he added. "The rapid growth at the bank and its significant mismatch for liquidity purposes should have had the system flashing red."

Dennis Kelleher, the president of Better Markets, expressed a similar sentiment earlier this week, noting that "the Fed has much more and superior knowledge, information, expertise, and access to banks than short sellers, rating agencies, and the media, yet they all appear to have done a much better job at identifying the very serious risks at SVB than the Fed."

In a letter to Powell on Thursday, Warren—one of the Fed chair's most outspoken critics in Congress—laid out in detail what she characterized as the central bank's "astonishing list of failures" that contributed to the collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank.

"As chair of the Fed, you have led and vigorously supported efforts to weaken the regulations that would have subjected banks like SVB and Signature to stronger liquidity requirements, more robust stress testing, and routine resolution planning obligations," the Massachusetts Democrat wrote. "Make no mistake: your decisions aided and abetted this bank failure, and you bear your share of responsibility for it."

In response to the Times' reporting, Warren tweeted Friday that "the Fed chair's outrageous attempt to muzzle the rest of the government about his role in contributing to this current crisis is completely inappropriate—and it won't work."

"Congress needs to step in to fix these mistakes before things get even worse," added Warren, who introduced legislation earlier this week that would repeal a key section of the 2018 bank deregulation law.

This story has been updated to include Sen. Elizabeth Warren's reaction to the reporting on Fed Chair Jerome Powell's intervention.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jake Johnson.

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This story is exempt from our Creative Commons license until July 15, 2023.

The collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank this past weekend were the end point in an all-too-familiar cycle: first the boom, then the breathtakingly speedy bust and then the bailout. We are now at the postmortem moment — when everyone wonders where the regulators were.

Silicon Valley Bank has already become notorious for how obvious its red flags were. Perhaps the most telling was the rapid growth of its borrowing from the Federal Home Loan Banks system. Banking experts know this Depression-era group of government-sponsored lenders as the second-to-last resort for banks. (The Fed is, as always, the lender of last resort.) At the end of last year, Silicon Valley Bank had $15 billion of FHLB loans, up from zero a year earlier.

“That’s the type of flag that says you need to look closely,” Kathryn Judge, a Columbia law professor who specializes in financial regulation, told me. But there’s no sign the loans triggered any regulatory attention.

Primary responsibility for the debacle lies, of course, with SVB’s management. But regulators are supposed to grasp that they exist because bankers are always tempted to take risks. Bankers want to grow too fast, borrow cheaply, lend freely and lock their investments up unwisely for long periods in hope of gaining higher returns.

Some commentators are now reiterating calls for banking rules to be tightened, which is probably a wise move. But the collapse of the two banks proves once more that the culture of the regulators is as important as any rules, laws or tools at their disposal.

At least one journalist detected banks’ rising vulnerabilities, including those of Silicon Valley Bank, as early as last November; the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.’s own chair had also warned about the problem. A few short sellers even started betting against the bank’s stock. Now, however, the combination of reckless bankers and lax regulators has left us with a financial crisis and a federal-government bailout — and the well-rehearsed spectacle of regulators promising to do better next time. (And yes, this was a bailout. Some depositors were facing losses and the federal government, backed by the public, prevented that — at as-yet-unknown scale and cost.)

One troubling aspect of this particular collapse is just how unremarkable a bank run it was, how basic its causes were. Regulators didn’t need any fancy analysis to detect the danger at Silicon Valley Bank. They just needed to notice its financial results. Granted, in 2018 Congress had loosened the post-global-financial-crisis Dodd-Frank regulations that would have required a bank like SVB to undergo more frequent stress tests, but those tests measure exotic or extreme risks. All that was required in this case was regular supervision. The bank had clear risk-control flaws and disclosed losses on its books, right there in its Securities and Exchange Commission filings.

Silicon Valley Bank’s assets had grown dramatically, quadrupling in five years, as had its deposits. Both phenomena are almost always worrying signs. The bank was also overly concentrated in one sector of the economy, and an unusually large proportion of its deposits — about 94% — was uninsured, above the $250,000 limit that the FDIC will guarantee per deposit.

No bank can survive if every creditor asks for their money back at once. The larger the portion of a bank’s clients that could wake up one day to realize that their deposits are not protected, the greater the risk of a run.

What Silicon Valley Bank did with those deposits should have been another warning signal. It used them to buy too many long-term bonds. As interest rates go up, bonds lose value. Nobody should have needed the warning, but the bank itself said that interest-rate risk was the biggest hazard it faced. And regulators should have noticed before the bank began borrowing heavily from the FHLB system.

In its SEC filings in the third quarter of last year, the bank’s parent company disclosed that it was sitting on losses from its bond purchases big enough to swamp its total equity. That would have been a good time for supervisors to tell the bank to get its act together.

Silicon Valley Bank was far from doing so: It hadn’t had a chief risk officer for most of that year. “Regulators had to know that, and it has to matter,” Jeff Hauser, the founder and director of the Revolving Door Project, a Washington nonprofit that tracks the regulatory state, told me. “Once we valorize success as proof of wisdom, it’s hard for a lowly bank examiner to say, ‘This place doesn’t have a risk officer and doesn’t have a plan to address the risk on its books.’”

Bank regulators have awesome powers. They can go into a bank, examine its operations and demand changes. The problem is that they rarely do. “The regulators are like all the conflicted agents in ratings [agencies] and other areas,” Chris Whalen, a longtime financial analyst, told me. “They go with the flow in good times and drop the ball in bad times.”

The San Francisco Fed, which regulated the parent company, and the California regulators, which oversaw the bank itself, could have required SVB to raise capital last year, when it was less vulnerable. They could also have required the bank to increase rates on its savings accounts — in other words, to pay people more to lend it money. That would have eroded earnings but it would’ve kept customers from fleeing. Ask Greg Becker, the bank’s chief executive, today if he would rather have reduced per-share earnings or avoided having superintended the second-largest banking collapse in U.S. history.

So why don’t we have regulators who can be relied on to do their jobs?

Part of the answer is a legacy of the Trump administration’s penchant for installing regulators who are opposed to regulation. Donald Trump appointed Randal Quarles as the first-ever vice chair of banking supervision at the Federal Reserve. (The Fed did not respond to questions for this story.) Quarles saw it as his mission to relax the post-financial-crisis regime. He sent unambiguous signals about how he felt about aggressive regulators — “Changing the tenor of supervision will probably actually be the biggest part of what it is that I do,” he declared in 2017. Translation: Any sign of showing teeth and he’ll get out the pliers. And when Jerome Powell was nominated to be the chair of the Fed, in 2017, he told Congress that Quarles was a “close friend,” adding, “I think we are very well aligned on our approach to the issues that he will face as vice chair for supervision.” Naturally, Quarles supported the 2018 law to roll back stress tests — something that Becker himself had called for. Quarles also did not respond to my request for comment.

This crisis raises the old issue of how strange it is that the Federal Reserve regulates banks at all. In the years leading up to the 2008-09 financial crisis, an alphabet soup of regulators ostensibly shared responsibility for banking oversight along with the Fed: The OTS (Office of Thrift Supervision), the OCC (Office of the Comptroller of the Currency), the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission), and the CFTC (Commodity Futures Trading Commission). Banks and financial entities played these agencies off against one another to shop for the least restrictive. Policy makers and legislators knew this and toyed with changing the architecture of banking-and-securities regulation. Ultimately, their only action was to close down the least of them, the OTS, and keep the rest, each of which had its own constituency of supporters.

So the Federal Reserve kept its responsibilities. But critics argue that the Fed can never become an effective bank regulator because its chief concern is with the more glamorous business of managing the economy.

The roots of regulatory failure run deeper, however, than the Trump administration’s actions. President Joe Biden’s appointees at the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau appear to be trying to wield their powers to make the economy more efficient, safer and more equitable. But pockets of learned governmental helplessness remain. Regulators have an ingrained fear of stepping in, making people uncomfortable, making demands and using their clout.

The Fed’s banking supervisors should have been on heightened alert as its governors started boosting interest rates. Silicon Valley Bank faced not only the interest-rate risk to its treasury-bond holdings but also the likelihood of credit losses accumulating on its books from distressed venture-capital firms and declines in commercial real-estate values last year.

The fact that the Fed supervisors weren’t agile with Silicon Valley Bank indicates that they have failed to internalize how woefully fragile our financial system is. The U.S. has suffered repeated bubbles, manias and crashes since the deregulatory era began under Ronald Reagan: the savings-and-loan crisis, Long-Term Capital Management, the Nasdaq crash, the global financial crisis, the financial convulsions of the early pandemic. Congress and regulators sometimes shore up aspects of the system after the event, but they have failed to foster a resilient financial system that doesn’t inflate serial bubbles. Each time, instead, the regulators reinforce a lesson that if bubble participants huddle as closely together as possible, and fail conventionally, the government will be there to save them.

“One of the most disturbing dynamics here,” Judge, the Columbia Law professor, told me, “is a loss of respect for the Fed as a supervisor, as a regulator.” That is not a good place for the industry’s chief overseer to start rebuilding confidence in the integrity of the American banking system.

This content originally appeared on Articles and Investigations - ProPublica and was authored by by Jesse Eisinger.

As of Monday, more than 500 physicians and other medical professionals had signed on to a letter urging federal regulators to prevent the expansion of a fracked gas pipeline in the Pacific Northwest.

The sign-on campaign comes as the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is expected to weigh in on TC Energy's Gas Transmission Northwest (GTN) Xpress project as soon as this month.

The Canadian company's proposed expansion would boost the capacity of a pipeline that runs through British Columbia, Canada and the U.S. states of Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and California.

"FERC should deny the permit for this pipeline expansion proposal, which is both unnecessary to meet our energy needs and harmful to people in our communities."

"We are in a climate crisis, where we are already experiencing the devastating effects of rising temperatures, the direct result of burning fossil fuels, including so-called 'natural gas,' i.e., methane," the health professionals wrote, noting that methane has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over its first 20 years.

Dr. Ann Turner of Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) said that "as medical practitioners, we see the impact the climate crisis has on people each and every day. And we have a responsibility to sound the alarm. We urge FERC to prioritize the health of our most vulnerable communities over profit."

As the letter explains:

TC Energy proposes to increase the amount of gas in its existing pipelines by expanding compressor stations which provide the force which propels gas through pipelines. These compressor stations emit significant amounts of air pollution, both from the operation of the engine which powers the pump as well as from venting. Compressor stations and meter stations vent methane, volatile organic compounds like formaldehyde, particulate matter, nitrogen dioxide, and carbon monoxide. All of these air pollutants have serious health impacts, including increased risks of stroke, cancer, asthma and low birth weight, and premature babies. Compressor stations also produce significant noise pollution. The air and noise pollution from these compressor stations disproportionately harms the rural, low-income, and minority communities that already experience significant health disparities, especially those that are living in proximity to the pipeline expansion project.

"In addition to the health consequences from the pipeline expansion project itself, gas in the GTN pipeline is extracted by fracking in Canada," the letter highlights. "Fracking degrades the environment including contamination of soil, water, and air by toxic chemicals. Communities exposed to these toxins experience elevated rates of birth defects, cancer, and asthma."

"The negative health impacts of methane gas, and its contribution to warming the climate and polluting the air, are unacceptable impacts that disproportionately affect Black, Indigenous, and people of color and low-income communities," the letter adds, arguing that the project is inconsistent with both global and regional goals to reduce planet-heating emissions.

Organizations supporting the letter include Wild Idaho Rising Tide as well as the San Francisco, Oregon, and Washington arms of PSR—which have previously joined other local groups in speaking out against the project alongside regional political figures including U.S. Democratic Sens. Jeff Merkley and Ron Wyden, both of Oregon.

"Idahoans dread FERC approval of the GTN Xpress expansion project, which would force greater fracked gas volumes and hazardous emissions through the aging GTN pipeline," according to Helen Yost of Wild Idaho Rising Tide.

"This expansion project would further threaten and harm the health and safety of rural communities, environments, and recreation economies for decades," she warned. "This proposed expansion does not support the best interests of concerned Northwesterners living and working near compressor stations and the pipeline route."

Dr. Mark Vossler, a board member at Washington PSR, pointed out that "states in the Northwest have made great strides in reducing our dependence on fossil fuels and creating healthier communities."

"I urge FERC to consider the human health impact of the proposed pipeline expansion and respect the leadership of local, state, and tribal governments in addressing the climate crisis," he said. "FERC should deny the permit for this pipeline expansion proposal, which is both unnecessary to meet our energy needs and harmful to people in our communities."

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Jessica Corbett.

On the evening of Sunday, March 5, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority, the country’s broadcast regulator, issued the ban on airing Khan’s speeches, which went into effect on Monday, and warned that violators will have their licenses canceled, according to news reports.

Hours after the order was announced on Sunday, PEMRA suspended ARY News’ license for broadcasting a speech by Khan, according to those sources and ARY News CEO Salman Iqbal, who spoke to CPJ by phone. ARY News remains off the air as of Monday evening, Iqbal said.

“Pakistan’s ban on satellite television channels broadcasting former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s speeches and the suspension of ARY News’ license are the government’s latest attacks on press freedom and the right to information,” said Beh Lih Yi, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator. “Authorities must immediately reverse these blatant acts of censorship and allow the media to report on key political developments in the country freely.”

PEMRA’s order followed a Sunday speech by Khan, head of the opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf party who has been pushing for early elections, in which he alleged that former army chief General Qamar Javed Bajwa had orchestrated Khan’s removal from power in April 2022, according to those sources. Before the speech, authorities unsuccessfully attempted to arrest Khan on corruption charges.

Iqbal told CPJ that although other Pakistani television channels broadcasted Khan’s speech Sunday, only ARY News had its license suspended. The outlet plans to file a petition against the suspension at the Sindh High Court on Tuesday, he said.

On Monday, Khan filed a petition at the Lahore High Court challenging the ban, according to reports. PEMRA previously banned live telecasts of Khan’s speeches in August and November 2022, and both orders were later reversed, according to news reports.

CPJ emailed PEMRA and called and messaged Information Minister Marriyum Aurangzeb for comment, but did not receive any replies.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

In a move blasted by one environmental group as a "cave to PG&E," the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission on Thursday approved the criminal corporation's continued operation of California's last nuclear power plant without a renewed license or safety review while it seeks a 20-year-extension.

The NRC granted an "administrative" exception allowing the Diablo Canyon plant near Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County—which began operating in 1985—to remain operational under its current license beyond its scheduled 2025 closure date. The commission said in a statement that the exemption "will not present an undue risk to the public health and safety, and is consistent with the common defense and security."

PG&E senior vice president and chief nuclear officer Paula Gerfen welcomed the NRC decision as a way to "improve statewide electric system reliability and reduce greenhouse gas emissions as additional renewable energy and carbon-free resources come online."

\u201cPro-nuclear advocates are scared of not having electricity 24/7.\nI'd rather risk an hour of no electricity than risk a meltdown.\nDiablo Canyon kills fish and heats the ocean.\nMoney should go to renewables.\n#CloseDiabloCanyon\u201d

— Susie Sunshine \u262e\u2615\ud83c\udf34\ud83d\udc15\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6 (@Susie Sunshine \u262e\u2615\ud83c\udf34\ud83d\udc15\ud83c\uddfa\ud83c\udde6) 1677776332

However, green groups denounced the move.

"The decision is unprecedented," Friends of the Earth said in a statement. "The NRC has never approved an exemption for a license renewal applicant that would allow it to operate a nuclear reactor past its 40-year limit without a comprehensive safety and environmental review."

"The NRC's own rules recognize that continued operation of a reactor past the 40-year statutory limit poses safety risks that are different from operational risks during the facility's first 40 years in operation and require a separate review," the group added. "But the NRC, in its bow to PG&E, completely ignored its own rules, with far-reaching implications for all its safety standards."

\u201cDiablo Canyon, CA's last remaining nuclear plant, just got the greenlight to operate up to 20 years without a safety review or a license renewal. \n\nThe decision completely ignores safety and environmental issues that the aging plant poses.\ud83e\udd26\u200d\u2640\ufe0f\nhttps://t.co/yrJbEIQt2R\u201d

— Friends of the Earth (Action) (@Friends of the Earth (Action)) 1677801021

The NRC's decision came days after the California Energy Commission rubber-stamped a plan backed by Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom, the state Legislature, and PG&E to keep Diablo Canyon operating.

Visiting the facility on Wednesday, Newsom cited last year's record heatwave and other climate-driven extreme weather events to assert that Diablo Canyon "is important to support energy reliability as we accelerate progress towards achieving our clean energy and climate goals."

As CalMatters' Nadia Lopez reported, PG&E said it will seek permission to keep Diablo Canyon operating for up to 20 additional years, although state officials have not said whether they will allow the plant to run after 2030. A law passed last year by the California Legislature allows the facility to remain operational for the remainder of the decade, while the Biden administration last November announced a billion-dollar bailout for PG&E to keep the plant running.

According to Friends of the Earth:

Major safety and environmental risks will only increase if Diablo Canyon's twin reactors continue running past their expiration dates. First, the reactors are sited on a web of earthquake fault lines. A recent New York Times article detailed how similar the fault lines are beneath Diablo to those that caused the recent 7.8 earthquake that has killed roughly 50,000 people in Turkey and Syria combined.

Furthermore, the NRC is proposing to let Diablo Canyon continue operating without environmental review of the significant adverse effects on the marine environment from the plant's once-through cooling, or OTC, system. PG&E was due to replace the OTC system with cooling towers in 2024 and 2025, but now will be allowed to abandon that effort without an environmental risk evaluation.

"This is an ominous warning sign for how independent the NRC will be in evaluating the earthquake risk and the overall operational integrity of the Diablo Canyon reactors," Friends of the Earth legal director Hallie Templeton said in a statement. "We will consider all available means to ensure that they are held to the letter of the law on this and future decisions and do not put people and the environment at risk."

\u201cNRC caved to PG&E over license exemption for aging Diablo Canyon nuclear plant. The NRC's betrayal of public safety comes days after the California Energy Commission rubberstamped PG&E's plan to keep Diablo operating beyond 2025.\nREAD MORE: https://t.co/TsvMMF5Gih #NoDiablo\u201d

— Mothers for Peace (@Mothers for Peace) 1677831351

Diane Curran, lead attorney for the anti-nuclear group San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, said that "this decision is frightening because it casts aside the serious safety and environmental issues raised by operating Diablo Canyon past its expiration dates without a comprehensive safety and environmental review."

"The NRC calls the exemption a mere 'administrative' decision, as if it were choosing paper clip sizes," Curran added. "There is nothing 'administrative' about allowing this aging reactor duo to continue running for days, months, or years when each day of operation poses the risk of an accident that could devastate the entire state and beyond."

Ken Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, called NRC's behavior mafia-like.

"Public safety concerns were blatantly ignored by the NRC over this politically motivated and reckless decision to bend the law for PG&E," he said.

"A federal agency responsible for protecting public safety is now simply serving as the consigliere for the nuclear industry," he added.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Brett Wilkins.

Pigs arrive to the Farmer John slaughterhouse in Vernon, Calif., on September 27, 2018.

Photo: David McNew/Getty Images

Ruling in favor of industry would set yet another grim precedent, potentially curtailing the ability of states to enforce progressive industry regulations.

Related

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Many of the industry giants are not aggressively siding with the National Pork Producers Council.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Natasha Lennard.

This content originally appeared on The Intercept and was authored by Ryan Grim.

Today the Supreme Court—again, with the 6 Republican appointees on one side and the 3 Democratic appointees on the other—limited the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to regulate carbon emissions from power plants. This ruling deals a major blow to America's (and the world's) efforts to address climate change. Also—as with its decision reversing Roe v. Wade—today's ruling has far larger implications than the EPA and the environment.

The financial backers of the Republican Party are getting exactly what they paid for.

West Virginia v. EPA is the latest battle pitting America's big businesses (in this case Big Oil) against the needs of average Americans. In this Supreme Court—containing three Trump appointees, two George W. Bush appointees, and one George H.W. Bush appointee—big business is winning big time. The financial backers of the Republican Party are getting exactly what they paid for.

Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts admitted that "capping carbon dioxide emissions at a level that will force a nationwide transition away from the use of coal to generate electricity may be a sensible 'solution to the crisis of the day.'" But then came the kicker: "But it is not plausible," he wrote, "that Congress gave EPA the authority to adopt on its own such a regulatory scheme."

Not plausible? Congress enacted the Clean Air Act in 1970. As with all laws, Congress left it to an administrative agency—in this case, the EPA—to decide how that Act was to be implemented and applied. That's what regulations do: They implement laws.

For the Supreme Court to give itself the authority to say whether Congress intended to delegate this much regulatory authority to the EPA is a truly radical act—more radical than any Supreme Court in modern history. If Congress has been unhappy with decades of EPA regulation, Congress surely has had the power to pull that authority back. But it has not.

As Justice Elena Kagan, writing for the dissenters, countered: "The Court appoints itself—instead of Congress or the expert agency—the decision maker on climate policy. I cannot think of many things more frightening."

The implications of the ruling extend to all administrative agencies in the federal government—to the Securities and Exchange Commission implementing the Securities Acts of 1933 and 1934, to the Federal Trade Commission applying the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, to the Department of Labor implementing the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, and so on, across the entire range of government—and the entire range of regulations designed to protect consumers, investors, workers, and the environment. (This same Supreme Court has ruled that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention was not authorized to impose a moratorium on evictions and that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration was powerless to tell large employers to have their workers be vaccinated or undergo frequent testing.)

In passing laws to protect the public, Congress cannot possibly foresee all ways in which those laws might be implemented and all circumstances in which the public might need the protections such laws accord. Starting today, though, all federal regulations will be under a cloud of uncertainty—and potential litigation.

A final implication of today's ruling is that the filibuster has to go. If the Supreme Court is going to require that Congress be more active and specific in protecting the environment or anything else, such a goal is implausible when 60 senators are necessary to enact it. Senate Democrats now have it in their power to abolish the filibuster. Today's case should convince them they must.

This content originally appeared on Common Dreams - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community and was authored by Robert Reich.

The post Corruption and Regulatory Capture appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by David Rosen.

Since that political transition, journalists have faced physical assault and online and legal harassment, according to multiple news reports and the journalists, who spoke to CPJ by phone. The new PML-N government has also announced several bureaucratic and legislative reforms that will impact press freedom and freedom of expression.

On April 21, a group of around 20 PTI employees assaulted Khawar Mughal, a reporter for the privately owned broadcaster 92 News, at a party gathering at the Minar-i-Pakistan monument in Lahore, the capital of the northeast Punjab province, according to Dawn and Mughal, who spoke to CPJ by phone.

When Mughal arrived at the venue, with the 92 News logo on his microphone, the employees beat, kicked, and pushed the journalist, snatched his microphone, and accused the TV channel of airing anti-PTI programs, saying they would not allow the outlet to cover their gathering, according to those sources.

When other journalists stepped forward to help Mughal, the employees threatened them with the same treatment until they backed away, according to those sources. Mughal told CPJ that he sustained minor injuries across his body but did not require medical attention.

Police have registered a first information report, which opens an investigation, against the unnamed perpetrators, according to a copy of the report that CPJ reviewed. Lahore police spokesperson Mazhar Hussain did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

At a PTI party gathering in Lahore on April 22, an unidentified person held up a banner with a veiled rape threat against Gharida Farooqi, a host for the talk show “G for Gharida” on the privately owned broadcaster News One, according to a tweet by Freedom Network, a local press freedom group, and Farooqi, who spoke with CPJ by phone. Farooqi told CPJ that she filed a complaint with the Federal Investigation Agency, adding that photos of the banner were shared widely across social media.

Since 2014, Farooqi has filed around eight complaints with the Federal Investigation Agency in response to gendered online harassment, including death and rape threats, she said, adding that the Federal Investigation Agency has not brought any of the perpetrators to justice. CPJ has previously documented gendered online harassment against Farooqi. Tahir Rai, the newly appointed director-general of the Federal Investigation Agency, did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

Also on April 22, the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA), the country’s broadcast regulator, issued a formal notice to the privately owned ARY News channel after it covered comments by Asad Majeed, the former Pakistani ambassador to the United States, about an alleged foreign conspiracy to topple former Prime Minister Khan, according toDawn and a copy of the notice.

The notice requested the broadcaster to demonstrate why legal or disciplinary action should not be taken against it. It also ordered ARY News CEO Salman Iqbal to appear for a hearing on April 29 and submit a written response to PEMRA, according to Dawn. PEMRA’s media office did not respond to CPJ’s emailed request for comment. CPJ emailed ARY News for comment but did not receive a reply.

Separately, on April 19, newly appointed Minister for Information and Broadcasting Marriyum Aurangzeb announced it would scrap the proposed Pakistan Media Development Authority, a regulatory body proposed under the previous government that would have put the country’s entire media under a single government-led authority, according to Dawn. CPJ had previously called on former Prime Minister Imran Khan to halt plans to establish the body.

Aurangzeb also announced that the new government would review the 2016 Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (PECA), particularly the sections in which the right to freedom of expression was “misconstrued,” according to Dawn. CPJ has repeatedly documented how the law has been used to detain, investigate, and harass journalists in retaliation for their work.

Aurangzeb also decried the PECA ordinance, which was introduced under the previous government in February 2022, calling it a “black law,” according to Dawn. CPJ had previously called on authorities to revoke the proposed ordinance, which would have expanded prison terms for online defamation on social media platforms to five years. The Islamabad High Court struck the law down earlier this year.

Aurangzeb further announced that the 2021 Protection of Journalists and Media Professionals Act, passed under the previous government, would be implemented soon, according to Dawn. However, the act in its current form, which CPJ reviewed, includes a section that prohibits journalists from disseminating “false or untrue” materials, which may be used to further crackdown on press freedom.

On April 23, Aurangzeb said that the new government would revise the PEMRA laws to stop “fake news,” according to The Express Tribune. Aurangzeb did not respond to CPJ’s request for comment sent via messaging app.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

The 2016 BMJ study assessed the “revolving door” between FDA regulators and the pharmaceutical companies the agency is charged with regulating. The study found that the “majority” of the FDA’s hematology-oncology reviewers who left the agency (15 of 26) “ended up working or consulting for the biopharmaceutical industry,” Jacobs reported.  The 2018 Science article  found that 11 of 16 FDA reviewers who worked on 28 drug approvals and subsequently left the agency subsequently took positions working at or consulting for the companies they had recently regulated.

In another case, Jacobs reported, the FDA overruled the concerns raised by its own scientific advisory committee when it approved a new Alzheimer’s drug marketed as Aduhelm, in 2021. An advisory committee of eleven members voted unanimously (with one abstention) not to approve the drug. The FDA ignored the committee’s vote and “approved it anyway,” Jacobs reported. The drug is now priced at $56,000 a year per patient. Perhaps this pro-pharma outcome is related to the fact that approximately half of the FDA’s budget for regulating the drug industry comes from fees the industry pays to expedite drug approval processes.

In a December 2021 article for Common Dreams, Brett Wilkins wrote that nine of the ten most recent FDA commissioners —representing nearly four decades of agency leadership—have gone on to work for pharmaceutical companies after leaving the FDA. Wilkins reported that Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) voted against President Biden’s nomination of Dr. Robert Califf to lead the FDA for a second time, citing Califf’s ongoing ties to major drug companies. “We need leadership at the FDA,” Sanders stated, “willing to stand up to the greed and power of the pharmaceutical industry.”

And what of the CDC?  In a February 2022 article for Tablet, Vinay Prasad wrote that, “when it comes to vaccination, the CDC has a single policy: All Americans should get three doses, regardless of age or medical conditions. This is not science as such, but science as political propaganda.” Prasad noted that the CDC is both a scientific agency and a political one, with a director appointed by the nation’s president. But, instead of balancing public welfare with executive branch priorities, “the CDC has been a poor steward of that balance, pushing a series of scientific results that are severely deficient,” Prasad wrote. The CDC, he continued has been “captured by the country’s national political system,” a “precarious” situation that “undermines trust in federal agencies and naturally leads to a trust vacuum.” that leaves the public to “a confused search for alternative sources of information.”

Sources:

Maxim Jacobs, “The Regulatory Capture of the FDA,” The American Conservative, June 12, 2021.

Brett Wilkins, “Citing Multimillion-Dollar Big Pharma Ties, Sanders to Vote ‘No’ on Biden’s Pick for FDA Chief”, Common Dreams, December 14, 2021.

Vinay Prasad, “How the CDC Abandoned Science,” Tablet, February 14, 2022.

Student Researcher: Cia Davis (San Francisco State University)

Faculty Evaluator: Kenn Burrows and Amber Yang (San Francisco State University)

The post Regulatory Capture of the FDA and CDC appeared first on Project Censored.

This content originally appeared on Project Censored and was authored by Vins.

The post The Supreme Court Could Hamstring Federal Agencies’ Regulatory Power in a High-Profile Air Pollution Case appeared first on CounterPunch.org.

This content originally appeared on CounterPunch.org and was authored by Albert C. Lin.