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Auto Execs Will Be Pleased With Trump’s Latest Gift to the Industry

by 4q4cv8v Posted on March 15, 2017

Mother Jones

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At an event for auto workers near Detroit, Michigan, on Wednesday, President Donald Trump will announce his latest gift to industry executives: the start of a potentially protracted process that will ultimately weaken carbon pollution standards for cars and trucks by reversing one of the last actions the Environmental Protection Agency took under President Barack Obama.

The EPA in January finalized a midterm review evaluating the program’s progress in which EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy affirmed the pollution standards that requires U.S. car manufacturers to raise efficiency from 27.5 miles per gallon to 54.5 mpg by 2025. Now, the Trump administration wants to restart this review process, moving the burden of responsibility for determining how far to roll back standards from the EPA to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in the Department of Transportation.

The proposal doesn’t change any emission standards just yet, nor does it get into the thorny issue of whether to revoke waivers that California and 13 other states have in order to pursue tougher tailpipe emissions standards—although EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt has suggested he is considering doing just that.

The logic for this plan was explained on a press call Tuesday with a senior White House official who asked not to be identified. The official said the EPA “sort of shoved it down their throats in December,” when it completed the midterm review before the required 2018 deadline. “I don’t think the industry and public had a lot of opportunity to gather their comments,” said the official who directed reporters to “read the Auto Alliance testimony” from the industry in order to learn more about the controversy. This was testimony presented to the House Energy and Commerce committee earlier last fall. Though it briefly embraced the standards in 2009, the industry has since said they are unattainable, and in the Auto Alliance testimony, CEO Mitch Bainwol stated the administration shouldn’t “jam standards that are inconsistent with consumer behavior.”

The EPA’s final determination found that the “standards are feasible at reasonable cost” based on market trends, without needing to manufacture many more electric cars or hybrid vehicles. They would cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, save 1.2 billion barrels of oil, and provide net benefits of $100 billion in savings, according to the EPA’s estimates for 2022 to 2025. If they are rolled back, the consequences could be less efficient cars made by U.S. manufacturers and tougher competition with countries in Asia and Europe that produce hybrid cars. It also could mean more money spent at the gas pump—the Obama-era rules were expected to cut down on gas bills, saving American buyers an average $8,000 over the lifetime of the vehicles.

“Making this U-turn on fuel economy is the wrong way to go for our security, economy and environment,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) says. “Innovation has been driving our historic progress on fuel economy, and we cannot let Donald Trump put us in reverse.”

Further actions targeting the EPA and the Department of the Interior could be released this week, and executive orders targeting climate regulations for new and existing coal-fired power plants are expected any day.

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Auto Execs Will Be Pleased With Trump’s Latest Gift to the Industry

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Trump May Not Care About Climate Change, But the Pentagon Does

by dannhollander37 Posted on March 15, 2017

Mother Jones

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This story originally appeared on ProPublica.

Secretary of Defense James Mattis has asserted that climate change is real and a threat to American interests abroad and the Pentagon’s assets everywhere, a position that appears at odds with the views of the president who appointed him and many in the administration in which he serves.

In unpublished written testimony provided to the Senate Armed Services Committee after his confirmation hearing in January, Mattis said it was incumbent on the US military to consider how changes like open-water routes in the thawing Arctic and drought in global trouble spots can pose challenges for troops and defense planners. He also stressed this is a real-time issue, not some distant what-if.

“Climate change is impacting stability in areas of the world where our troops are operating today,” Mattis said in written answers to questions posed after the public hearing by Democratic members of the committee. “It is appropriate for the Combatant Commands to incorporate drivers of instability that impact the security environment in their areas into their planning.”

Mattis has long espoused the position that the armed forces, for a host of reasons, need to cut dependence on fossil fuels and explore renewable energy where it makes sense. He had also, as commander of the US Joint Forces Command in 2010, signed off on the Joint Operating Environment, which lists climate change as one of the security threats the military expected to confront over the next 25 years.

But Mattis’ written statements to the Senate committee are the first direct signal of his determination to recognize climate change as a member of the Trump administration charged with leading the country’s armed forces.

These remarks and others in the replies to senators could be a fresh indication of divisions or uncertainty within President Donald Trump’s administration over how to balance the president’s desire to keep campaign pledges to kill Obama-era climate policies with the need to engage constructively with allies for whom climate has become a vital security issue.

Mattis’ statements on climate change, for instance, recognize the same body of science that Scott Pruitt, the new Environmental Protection Agency administrator, seems dead-set on rejecting. In a CNBC interview last Thursday, Pruitt rejected established science pointing to carbon dioxide as the main driver of recent global warming.

Mattis’ position also would appear to clash with some Trump administration budget plans, which, according to documents leaked recently to The Washington Post, include big cuts for the Commerce Department’s oceanic and atmospheric research 2014 much of it focused on tracking and understanding climate change.

Even setting aside warming driven by accumulating carbon dioxide, it’s clear to a host of experts, including Dr. Will Happer, a Princeton physicist interviewed by Trump in January as a potential science adviser, that better monitoring and analysis of extreme conditions like drought is vital.

Mattis’ statements could hearten world leaders who have urged the Trump administration to remain engaged on addressing global warming. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is scheduled to meet Trump on Friday.

Security questions related to rising seas and changing weather patterns in global trouble spots like the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa are one reason that global warming has become a focus in international diplomatic forums. On March 10, the United Nations Security Council was warned of imminent risk of famine in Yemen, Somalia and South Sudan.

As well, at a Munich meeting on international security issues last month, attended by Mattis and Vice President Mike Pence, European officials pushed back on demands that they spend more on defense, saying their investments in boosting resilience to climate hazards in poor regions of the world are as valuable to maintaining security as strong military forces.

“You need the European Union, because when you invest in development, when you invest in the fight against climate change, you also invest in our own security,” Federica Mogherini, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said in a panel discussion.

Concerns about the implications of global warming for national security have built within the Pentagon and national security circles for decades, including under both Bush administrations.

In September, acting on the basis of a National Intelligence Council report he commissioned, President Obama ordered more than a dozen federal agencies and offices, including the Defense Department, “to ensure that climate change-related impacts are fully considered in the development of national security doctrine, policies, and plans.”

A related “action plan” was issued on Dec. 23, requiring those agencies to create a Climate and National Security Working Group within 60 days, and for relevant agencies to create “implementation plans” in that same period.

There’s no sign that any of this has been done.

Whether the inaction is a function of the widespread gaps in political appointments at relevant agencies, institutional inertia or a policy directive from the Trump White House remains unclear.

Queries to press offices at the White House and half a dozen of the involved agencies 2014 including the Environmental Protection Agency, Department of Defense, Department of Energy and Commerce Department 2014 have not been answered. A State Department spokeswoman directed questions to the National Security Council and the White House, writing:

“We refer you to the NSC for any additional information on the climate working group.”

Mattis’ statements were submitted through a common practice at confirmation hearings in which senators pose “questions for the record” seeking more detail on a nominee’s stance on some issue.

The questions and answers spanned an array of issues, but five Democratic senators on the committee asked about climate change, according to a government official briefed in detail on the resulting 58-page document with the answers. The senators were Jack Reed of Rhode Island, the ranking member, Tim Kaine of Virginia, Mazie Hirono of Hawaii, Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts.

Excerpts from Mattis’ written comments to the committee were in material provided to ProPublica by someone involved with work climate change preparedness at various government agencies. Senate staff confirmed their authenticity.

Dustin Walker, communications director for the Senate Armed Services Committee, said responses to individual senators’ follow-up questions are theirs to publish or not.

Here are two of the climate questions from Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire, with Mattis’ replies:

Shaheen: “I understand that while you were commander of US Joint Forces Command you signed off on a document called the Joint Operating Environment, which listed climate change as one of the security threats the military will face in the next quarter-century. Do you believe climate change is a security threat?”

Mattis: “Climate change can be a driver of instability and the Department of Defense must pay attention to potential adverse impacts generated by this phenomenon.”

Shaheen: “General Mattis, how should the military prepare to address this threat?”

Mattis: “As I noted above, climate change is a challenge that requires a broader, whole-of government response. If confirmed, I will ensure that the Department of Defense plays its appropriate role within such a response by addressing national security aspects.”

In a reply to another question, Mattis said:

“I agree that the effects of a changing climate 2014 such as increased maritime access to the Arctic, rising sea levels, desertification, among others 2014 impact our security situation. I will ensure that the department continues to be prepared to conduct operations today and in the future, and that we are prepared to address the effects of a changing climate on our threat assessments, resources, and readiness.”

Here is some recommended reading for those seeking more depth:

“Here’s How US Allies Are Trying to Convince Trump To Take Climate Change Seriously“

UN Dispatch, Feb. 22, 2017, by John Light

“Mattis on Military Energy Strategy“

New America, Jan. 13, 2017, by Sharon Burke

“Climate and Security Advisory Group: Briefing Book for a New Administration“

The Center for Climate and Security, Nov. 14, 2017

(The Center for Climate and Security also has a helpful chronology of US defense and intelligence output on these intertwined issues.)

“A New Climate for Peace: Taking Action on Climate and Fragility Risks“

A 2015 report commissioned by the foreign ministers of the Group of Seven

“The National Security Case for Funding the EPA“

The Hill (opinion), March 11, 2017, by Sherri Goodman (a deputy undersecretary of defense from 1993 to 2001)

Also, I ran a discussion on the subject at the Washington offices of the Hoover Institution last month with retired Navy Admiral Gary Roughead, who was chief of naval operations from 2007 to 2011; Alice Hill, who directed work on the intersection of climate and national security policy at the National Security Council during the Obama administration; and David Slayton, a retired Navy officer who is now at Hoover tracking Arctic security and energy policy. Watch the video.

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Trump May Not Care About Climate Change, But the Pentagon Does

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The EPA Used to Tweet About the Environment. Now It Just Tweets About Scott Pruitt

by CalebQ443110 Posted on March 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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One of the first actions the Trump administration took when it entered office was to crack down on the Environmental Protection Agency, starting with its social media feeds and website.

The agency’s work on climate and energy policy has slowed to a crawl, but it has been replaced with a different focus: The promotion of the new EPA administrator, Scott Pruitt. With one exception, all of the EPA’s tweets and Facebook posts since Pruitt’s confirmation have been about his various appearances or sharing quotes from the EPA chief or President Donald Trump. The only time EPA tweeted about an environmental issue, it was to promote Trump’s executive order attempting to roll back a Clean Water Act rule. (On Monday, outside of the three-week period we used for this analysis, the EPA finally tweeted about a local grant.)

This is unusual. During the Obama administration, the EPA Twitter account certainly publicized and promoted Administrator Gina McCarthy, but it was a far smaller portion of its work. Here’s a comparison of Tweets over a three-week period:

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Social media was then used as a tool for educating the public about public health problems and environmental initiatives, but under Pruitt, public education work is at a standstill.

“We tried to provide regular updates on the wide range of actions we were taking to protect people’s health and the environment all across the country,” Liz Purchia, a communications official for Obama’s EPA, said in an email. “People want to know that they are being heard; and social media is an essential tool for doing that. Right now what we’re seeing is a bunch of posts being thrown at us by Trump’s EPA without any effort to engage with the American people. All you have to do is take a look at EPA’s social media channels since Trump’s team took over and you can visually see the stark shift in control.”

Trump’s team froze all social media accounts and public communications when the new administration took office. The agency is posting updates again now that Pruitt is in charge, but its work on clean air, science, and climate change is far from the focus. The flurry of Twitter activity welcoming Pruitt after he was sworn in has since slowed mostly to promoting his speaking engagements. On Monday, which was out of the range for this comparison, the EPA had one additional tweet about policy, but kept up its Pruitt-focused ratio with one quote and retweet from Pruitt.

Under McCarthy, the EPA feeds were mostly run by career officials in coordination with the administrator’s political staff. The EPA then took a different tack. Over a similar time period when Gina McCarthy took over as administrator in 2013, the main house account tweeted 16 times about McCarthy herself and retweeted her nine times—most of which were during a public Q&A she conducted on Twitter. The overwhelming number of tweets was about the agency’s work. Here is a sampling:

All this suggests Pruitt and Trump’s team are carefully monitoring the public-facing side of the agency. An EPA career staffer, who requested anonymity, told Mother Jones that edits to the website must be approved first, and the website is “more tightly controlled” than it was before January.

There are a handful of exceptions: Regional offices in particular, where the Trump administration has not yet installed political appointees, are occasionally promoting local grants and cleanup projects.

Of course, the EPA is far more than its social media feeds. Its 15,000 employees are in charge of distributing grants, conducting scientific research, and enforcing the law. But social media is also a rough approximation of the priorities the agency wants to share with the public. The change of EPA’s emphasis on social media has also been more pronounced than that in other branches of the federal government, even ones focused on similar work. The Interior Department, for instance, is still sharing images of the nation’s national parks, and NOAA is still tweeting climate stats. The EPA hasn’t mentioned climate change once since Trump became president.

Some of the EPA’s followers on Facebook and Twitter have noticed the abrupt shift:

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The EPA Used to Tweet About the Environment. Now It Just Tweets About Scott Pruitt

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Is Obamacare Already Dead?

by BroderiCranford Posted on March 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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Paul Ryan and President Trump have been insisting for months that Obamacare is collapsing, failing, imploding, spiraling quickly into death. This is ridiculous, of course. It’s covering more than 20 million people at a lower cost than originally projected, and by any fair appraisal it’s been hugely successful.

But that’s not to say it has no problems. The Obamacare insurance pool is skewed toward the old and sick, and this has made it hard for insurers to turn a profit. Several smallish insurers have already left the market, and there are hundreds of counties in the US with only one insurer left on the exchanges. This is probably not fatal—CBO says the Obamacare market is stable—and it’s a problem that could be addressed fairly easily and inexpensively. Still, it does put the Obamacare market in modestly perilous shape.

But what now? Even if the godawful Republican repeal effort fails, there’s every reason to think that Congress will try again. What’s more, it’s clear that they’ll do everything they can to undermine Obamacare along the way. In a few months, insurance companies have to decide whether they want to participate in the exchange market in 2018, and I wonder what they’ll decide? The uncertainty is sky high now, and that means they have little incentive to continue. Remember, most insurers swallowed big losses early on in hopes of building a stable, profitable market later. But what’s the point of absorbing losses if it looks like—at best—years and years of chaos ahead?

It may be that 2018 is safe. The exchanges are pretty close to profitable now, and it’s probably worth it for most insurers to stay on board for at least another year to see what happens. Still, I wonder. Merely by upending everything and making it clear just how dedicated they are to cutting taxes on the rich and cutting health coverage for the poor, have Republicans already managed to effectively repeal Obamacare without passing a single page of legislation?

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Is Obamacare Already Dead?

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This Is What Trump’s Deportation Campaign Really Looks Like

by JannetteFalbo99 Posted on March 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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Since February, dozens of deportation raids have been carried out by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents as Donald Trump has kicked his immigration crackdown into high gear. Immigrants—many of whom have lived and worked in the country for decades—have been arrested at home, at work, and at routine check-ins with ICE officials. Some arrests have sparked protests, while others have gone relatively unnoticed.

Here are some of the most outrageous arrests ICE has made so far this year:

The DACA recipient arrested after speaking out against ICE

Twenty-two-year-old Daniela Vargas was arrested by ICE officers in Jackson, Mississippi, earlier this month—shortly after giving a speech in which she publicly criticized ICE for detaining her brother and father. Vargas, who arrived in the United States from Argentina with her family when she was seven, was one of thousands of young immigrants protected from deportation by the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which was started by President Obama in 2012. (Trump has been reluctant to criticize the program or so-called Dreamers, leading to criticism from immigration hardliners.)

Vargas was granted DACA status in 2014, but her status expired in November. In February, she applied to renew her status, and not long after her father and brother were detained at their home. Weeks later, Vargas spoke out about her relatives’ arrest at a news conference. Shortly afterward, ICE agents pulled over the car Vargas was riding in. “What we know they said is, ‘You know who we are, you know why we’re here,'” said Greisa Martinez Rosas, the director of United We Dream, an immigrants’ rights group. They arrested Vargas. “Because her DACA was expired,” Martinez Rosas said, “ICE agents played a game of ‘gotcha’ with her life.” Vargas was released from ICE custody last Friday, after a week in detention.

The brain tumor patient detained at the hospital

There are several places that immigration officials consider sensitive—schools, churches, hospitals, and ceremonies like funerals and weddings—where they typically refrain from conducting enforcement actions. In the case of Sara Beltrán Hernández, ICE agents skirted this informal policy in late February by arresting her in the Texas hospital where she was receiving treatment for a brain tumor. Beltrán Hernández was transferred to a detention facility in Alvardo, Texas, where she had previously been held after spending 16 months while waiting for a judge to rule on her asylum request. Beltrán Hernández claimed she had fled El Salvador in late 2015 to escape domestic abuse and the gang violence that has devastated the country.

Earlier this month, after a petition from her attorney and a social-media campaign led by Amnesty International, she was granted bond, allowing her to reunite with her family and seek medical attention while her case is resolved.

The transgender woman detained at her domestic-abuse court hearing

Ervin Gonzalez, an undocumented transgender woman from Mexico, was arrested in a courthouse in El Paso, Texas, in mid-February, just minutes after leaving a hearing in her domestic-violence case. Gonzalez, who had filed police reports for three incidents of alleged abuse, had been granted a protective order against her accused abuser. “We were stunned that ICE would go to these lengths for someone that is not a violent criminal,” Jo Anne Bernal, the county attorney, told a local news station after the arrest. “I cannot recall an instance where ICE agents have gone into the domestic-violence court, specifically looking for a victim of domestic violence.” An ICE spokesperson said the agency had been tipped off about the woman’s whereabouts by another law enforcement agency, and that she had already been deported six times. She is currently being held in a local detention facility under a federal ICE detainer.

The father whose arrest was filmed by his sobbing daughter

In another side step of ICE’s sensitive-location policy, immigration officials arrested Rómulo Avelica-González just a block away from his daughter’s school in Los Angeles. Avelica-González and his wife were headed there to drop off their daughter for the day when ICE officials pulled over their car. His 13-year-old daughter, who cried through the ordeal, captured the arrest on video. Avelica-González came to the United States from Mexico in the early 1990s and has since raised four daughters here, all US citizens. He is the sole financial provider for his family, according to his supporters. His family has attained a stay on his deportation from an appeals court.

In a statement, the union that represents teachers in Los Angeles slammed ICE for the arrest, saying it would “lead to students staying home, disrupting their education,” and that children had a right to an education “free from fear and intimidation.” Avelica-González was detained because he had “multiple prior criminal convictions,” ICE officials said, including a DUI from 2009, and an outstanding order of removal from 2011.

The Phoenix mother deported for working illegally

Guadalupe García de Rayos, a 35-year-old mother of two US citizens, was deported in early February. She had been detained during her annual check-in with ICE officials, which she was required to attend because of a years-old conviction for using a fake Social Security number to work. Because her felony conviction was nonviolent, García de Rayos was considered low priority for deportation under the Obama administration. But under ICE’s new prioritization guidelines, García de Rayos’ criminal record made her a priority for deportation. She was taken into custody at her check-in February and deported days later.

The Akron father who was forced to deport himself

Leonardo Valbuena, 43, was arrested at his regular check-in with immigration officials in Akron, Ohio, in February. He had traveled to the United States from Colombia with his wife and two children on a temporary visitor’s visa in 2006 and told local reporters that he had subsequently applied for political asylum. Valbuena, who worked as a carpenter in Cleveland, had been issued a Social Security number for tax purposes, a work permit, and a driver’s license as he awaited a decision—but in the meantime, he claimed, his visa expired. At his check-in in February, Valbuena was arrested and given the option to leave the country voluntarily in exchange for not being criminally prosecuted for overstaying his visa. He was given a few weeks to gather himself to go back to Colombia, and his wife and children decided to leave with him. In an interview with a local news station before he left for Colombia, Valbuena said, “It’s hard to explain how my life changed on that day.”

The pregnant mother of four

Lilian Cardona-Pérez, 33, came to the United States legally from Guatemala in 1997 at age 13. She seured a work permit, has been employed since—currently at a Mexican restaurant and as a housekeeper—and has raised four children with her husband. The couple is expecting a fifth. But earlier this month, Cardona-Pérez attended her regular check-in with ICE officials in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she was told she would be deported in 30 days. Cardona-Pérez’s family has not made public why she is being deported, but they said ICE made an allegation against her that, they claim, is untrue. She has an immigration hearing scheduled this week, but if deported, she’d leave behind her family and be left to raise her fifth child alone. “I have no family there. I have no home,” Cardona-Perez said of Guatemala at a prayer vigil last weekend. “There is no place I could go.”

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This Is What Trump’s Deportation Campaign Really Looks Like

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Trump’s Plan to Make America Great Again Using Cheap Foreign Labor

by CrystleAshton Posted on March 14, 2017

Mother Jones

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At Porterville Citrus, an orange harvesting and packing operation in California’s Tulare Valley, CEO Jim Phillips has been growing increasingly nervous over the past five years. He’s found it harder and harder to marshal enough local workers to pick his oranges on time—up to 20 percent of the fruit has been left to rot on the trees. This year he decided not to take any chances. He hired a contractor to supply his company with 120 Mexican guestworkers under the H-2A farmworker visa program. “It is a little bit more expensive,” he says, “but the quality and reliability is worth something to us. We know we can get the product harvested.”

Only about 4 percent of America’s 2.5 million farmworkers in 2015 came in on temporary visas—most of the rest were undocumented—but these numbers are poised to skyrocket if President Donald Trump carries out his promises to build a border wall and deport millions of undocumented immigrants. Trump has signaled that he wants to cut red tape in the H-2A program, but farmworkers’ advocates fear a loosening of the rules could make guestworkers even more vulnerable to potential labor abuses than they already are. “The H-2 programs are inherently problematic,” says Bruce Goldstein, president of a nonprofit called Farmworker Justice, because the workers “tend not to want to challenge unfair or illegal conduct—and there are a lot of violations.”

Despite campaigning on the unsettled claim that immigrants depress wages and compete with American citizens for jobs, Trump has embraced the use of temporary foreign workers. He has used low-wage guestworkers himself at Mar-a-Lago, and his son Eric petitioned the Labor Department in recent months to import 29 H-2A workers to tend his Virginia winery. Trump’s transition teams for the departments of Labor and Agriculture are stacked with members of trade groups and right-wing think tanks who support guestworker programs.

A draft executive order leaked to the press last month called for “efficient processing” of H-2A visas. The order “does suggest an interest in modernizing the H-2A program, which we would welcome,” says Jason Resnick, a vice-president of Western Growers, whose CEO serves on Trump’s agricultural advisory board. “We think the administration is well aware of the importance of the H-2A program to agriculture, so we are optimistic that there will be proposals forthcoming to make the program more efficient and streamlined and less costly and burdensome.”

The number of H-2A visas has roughly doubled since 2011 as it stands, driven by what farmers say are chronic labor shortages. The children of aging farmhands gravitate toward higher-paying work, and stricter border enforcement and an improving Mexican economy means fewer immigrant workers are available. Some farmers have turned to mechanization to hold down labor costs, but harvesting California’s fresh fruits and vegetables often requires a human touch. Western Growers says the crews of its farmer members are 20 percent understaffed.

Before hiring guestworkers, farmers have to show that they can’t find enough Americans to do the work at the “adverse effect wage,” which is basically the average wage in a given state for a given type of farm work. “US workers are not applying to take those H-2A jobs,” says Western Growers’ Resnick. “The ones that do generally don’t last a week, let alone the whole season.”

Some labor advocates say the shortages are a product of inferior wages. They point to Christopher Ranch, a 4,000-acre farm in Gilroy, California, which at the end of last year was short 50 workers it needed to peel and package garlic. In January, the company announced that it would raise its farmhand wage from $11 to $13 an hour—an 18 percent increase—and boost it to $15 in 2018. Soon it had a waitlist of 150 people. “I knew the pay raise would help,” ranch VP Ken Christopher told the Los Angeles Times, “but I had no idea it would solve our labor problem.”

But farmers insist they can’t pay wages high enough to attract non-immigrants. Labor economists tend to agree: “I don’t think we will ever get US workers in the field, period,” says P.L. Martin, a professor emeritus of agriculture and resource economics at UC-Davis. In America, he says, labor makes up about 40 percent of the cost of producing fresh fruits and vegetables, and that puts the farmers at a disadvantage to foreign rivals paying lower wages. But in less-competitive sectors—fresh-picked strawberries, fresh lettuce, etc—farmers could afford to pay more, according to a 2010 USDA report Martin co-authored.

In any case, H-2A workers are typically viewed as a last resort by American farmers, who must pay the cost of transporting and housing them. They cannot easily adjust an H-2A workforce according to a farm’s day-to-day needs—and they can’t employ any guestworker for more than three years at a time. There is one advantage, though: “We really can control the quality of the harvesting even better than we can with our local farm labor contractors,” says Phillips of Porterville Citrus. “Nobody is being overbearing, but if the workers are not productive, they can be sent back. So their incentive is to do a good job.”

Which is okay so long as the boss is fair. But the imbalance of power can also enable horrific abuses. A 2015 investigation by BuzzFeed found that thousands of H-2 visa holders had been badly exploited: deprived of fair pay, imprisoned, starved, beaten, raped, and threatened with deportation if they complained. And guestworkers seldom report labor abuses. When they do, advocates say, they lack the resources to fight for restitution. Former Rep. Charles Rangel once attacked the H-2 program as “the closest thing I’ve ever seen to slavery.”

The United States last experimented with large-scale use of guestworkers during WWII, when Mexican braceros labored on American farms. Approximately 200,000 braceros entered the United States each year between 1948 and 1964, according to historian Mae M. Ngai. On paper, the program offered legal protections for workers, just as the H-2A program does today, but abuses were common—a study by the Pan American Union noted that “workers who complain are regarded as agitators and shipped back to Mexico.”

Any plan to bring in more guestworkers will likely face resistance from left-leaning labor groups and right-wing nativists alike. Breitbart News has written critically about the use of H-2As, as well as H-2B visas for non-agricultural workers. As a senator, Attorney General Jeff Sessions voted against a bill to loosen restrictions on the H-2A program.

Yet guestworkers do have a certain appeal on the right. “You are probably going to see more reliance on it, which is better than just allowing employers to hire people who come across the border illegally,” says Ira Mehlman, media director for a group called Federation for American Immigration Reform. “It eliminates some of the exploitation that comes just with the widespread hiring of illegal aliens.”

Worker advocates were less sanguine. Employers control the guestworkers’ visas, making it very difficult for the workers to switch jobs. And while undocumented immigrants tend to migrate to places where they have friends and family, guestworkers often live in remote areas without support networks. “It should be that they are significantly better protected” than undocumented immigrants “and have access to better jobs, and that’s what the migrants come in expecting,” says Cathleen Caron, the founder of a farmworker advocacy group called Justice in Motion. But “in the end, everybody gets exploited equally.”

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Trump’s Plan to Make America Great Again Using Cheap Foreign Labor

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Republicans Unveil Their Health Care Plan. It’s a Bloodbath.

by ElizabethDeboer Posted on March 7, 2017

Mother Jones

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Republicans have finally released their shiny new health care plan. It’s pretty much the same as the discussion draft that leaked a couple of weeks ago, and includes the following basic features:

Subsidies (in the form of advanceable tax credits) are age-based, starting at $2,000 for young people and going up to $4,000 for older folks.
The subsidies begin to phase out above incomes of $75,000 ($150,000 for households). This will affect about 10 percent of the population and probably reduces the cost of the bill by about 5 percent.
Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion is frozen in 2020 and then gradually phased out.
The bill allocates about $10 billion per year for high-risk pools run by states. This is far too little to work effectively.
The tax meant to pay for everything was removed.
Insurers are required to cover everyone who applies, even if they have pre-existing conditions. However, if you have a coverage gap longer than two months, insurers can impose a premium surcharge of 30 percent for one year. This “continuous coverage” provision is designed to motivate people to buy insurance, since the bill repeals the individual mandate.
The funding formula for Medicaid is changed to a “per-capita allotment,” which is a fancy way of saying it gets cut.
All the Obamacare taxes on the rich are repealed.

Oh, and the bill includes a one-year ban on funding for Planned Parenthood. Conservatives love this, but it’s also likely to generate some sure no votes in the Senate. Remember that Republicans can only afford two defections in the Senate. Any more than that and their bill fails.

Needless to say, there’s not yet an analysis from the Congressional Budget Office about how much the GOP plan will cost or how many people it will cover. It’s safe to say that on the cost side, it will be a lot cheaper than Obamacare. In fact, since the tax credits are so stingy, it’s likely that very few people in the bottom third of the income spectrum will use them. They leave insurance too expensive for most poor people to afford.

Because of this, my horseback guess is that the Republican plan will be used by about 3 million people, compared to 10 million for Obamacare. The Medicaid expansion will be unchanged for a while, continuing to cover about 10 million people. Total cost for subsidies + high-risk pools + Medicaid expansion will run about $25 billion per year, compared to $100 billion for Obamacare.

Three million is far too small a pool for any kind of successful program, and the pre-existing conditions clause ensures that the pool will be not just small, but very, very heavily weighted toward the very sick. It’s a disaster for insurance companies, who will almost surely refuse to participate.

That’s my guess, anyway. It’s a bloodbath. More detailed analysis from think tankers will be available soon, and the CBO will weigh in eventually too. It’s not going to be pretty.

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Republicans Unveil Their Health Care Plan. It’s a Bloodbath.

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On Health Care, Republicans Are Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place

by DessieCowen315 Posted on March 7, 2017

Mother Jones

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The New York Times reports that the Koch brothers are about to unleash the hounds. They. Have. Had. Enough:

Saying their patience is at an end, conservative activist groups backed by the billionaire Koch brothers and other powerful interests on the right are mobilizing to pressure Republicans to fulfill their promise to swiftly repeal the Affordable Care Act.

….The sudden caution of the Republican Party leadership, as it grapples with the enormously complicated challenge of replacing the Affordable Care Act, has baffled conservatives who have been fighting the health law for years. In the House, Republicans have voted dozens of times to dismantle the law, and it has been a primary issue in congressional races since 2010. Repealing the law, many conservative lawmakers believe, is the one clear mandate they have from voters.

….The repeal effort by the conservative groups is intended to sway members of Congress who may be hesitating because of public pressure back home. That pressure, conservatives said, is no reason to renege.

Talk about clueless. Sure, constituent pressure is having an effect, but it’s nowhere near the biggest issue here. The biggest issue is that after voting to dismantle Obamacare dozens of times when they knew it was just a symbolic protest vote, Republicans suddenly have to think about what will happen if they dismantle it in real life. Answer: they now have to admit that they can’t dismantle the whole thing. They never fessed up to that before, so it’s no wonder the base is confused, but the House and Senate leadership have always known it. They can only dismantle the parts related to the budget because Democrats can filibuster the rest. And if Republicans dismantle only half the law, it will probably destroy the individual insurance market.

Oops. That would be bad, even by Republican standards. Plus there’s the fact that millions of people would lose coverage, which is bad by centrist voter standards, even if Republicans don’t really care about it. In other words, the GOP leadership is finally having to face up to the fact that repealing and replacing Obamacare is a tough nut to crack. Centrists will abandon them if they cause chaos, but hardliners will abandon them if they spend too much money. That’s why they’ve agreed to modify their current plan to exclude subsidies for the well-off:

The concession on tax credits is a middle ground between what conservatives were demanding and what leadership wanted. Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and RSC Chairman Mark Walker (R-N.C.) in recent weeks came out against the GOP plan to replace Obamacare tax subsides with advanceable health care tax credits.

They preferred a tax deduction that would not allow those who don’t pay taxes to receive a check in the mail, calling such “advanceable” credits a “new entitlement.” At the crux of their concerns is the price tag, which they worry would increase the deficit.

A tax deduction, of course, would be useless to the poor and working poor, the very people who need help the most. But the Freedom Caucus doesn’t care about that. Luckily for them, their leadership understands just what a political disaster that would be.

In any case, the Freedom Caucus is right about one thing: advanceable tax credits are a new entitlement. Or, more accurately, a continuation of an old entitlement. There’s really not much difference between Obamacare’s subsidies, which are paid directly to insurance companies, and Ryancare’s tax credits, which are paid to the taxpayer, who then pays the insurance company.

As for the deficit, well, Ryan’s plan will only increase the deficit if Republicans also repeal all of Obamacare’s taxes and then decline to pass any new ones. Which they will. So that’s a legitimate complaint too.

As usual, it all comes down to money. That’s really the only thing that matters.

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On Health Care, Republicans Are Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place

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This White House Statement Has Language That Is Nearly Identical to an Exxon Press Release

by LucileArmstrong Posted on March 6, 2017

Mother Jones

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Hours after President Donald Trump was scheduled to have lunch with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson on Monday, the White House issued an unusual press release. Trump congratulated Exxon Mobil—the company Tillerson formerly led—on its announcement that it would be spending $20 billion on expanded investments in 11 Gulf Coast projects. The oil and gas giant claims the move will create 45,000 jobs.

As if the close ties between the White House and Exxon weren’t clear enough, one part of the White House statement contains language that is nearly identical to language in Exxon’s press release.

Here are excerpts from the two releases, with the identical wording bolded. First, the White House document, which was emailed to reporters at 3:43 p.m.:

Exxon Mobil is strategically investing in new refining and chemical-manufacturing projects in the United States Gulf Coast region to expand its manufacturing and export capacity. The company’s Growing the Gulf program consists of 11 major chemical, refining, lubricant and liquefied natural gas projects at proposed new and existing facilities along the Texas and Louisiana coasts. Investments began in 2013 and are expected to continue through at least 2022.

Exxon Mobil’s projects, once completed and operating at mature levels, are expected to have far-reaching and long-lasting benefits. Projects planned or under way are expected to create more than 35,000 construction jobs and more than 12,000 full-time jobs. These are full-time manufacturing jobs that are mostly high-skilled and high-paying, and have annual salaries ranging from $75,000 to $125,000. These jobs will have a multiplier effect, creating many more jobs in the community that service these new investments.

And this is from the Exxon release, which was posted on the company’s website at 3:10 p.m.:

ExxonMobil is strategically investing in new refining and chemical-manufacturing projects in the U.S. Gulf Coast region to expand its manufacturing and export capacity. The company’s Growing the Gulf expansion program, consists of 11 major chemical, refining, lubricant and liquefied natural gas projects at proposed new and existing facilities along the Texas and Louisiana coasts. Investments began in 2013 and are expected to continue through at least 2022.

Woods said that ExxonMobil’s Gulf expansion projects are expected to provide long-term economic benefits to the region, noting the creation of direct employment opportunities and the multiplier effects of the company’s investments.

“Importantly, Growing the Gulf also creates jobs and lasting economic benefits for the communities where they’re located,” Woods said. “All told, we expect these 11 projects to create over 45,000 jobs. Many of these are high-skilled, high-paying jobs averaging about $100,000 a year. And these jobs will have a multiplier effect, creating many more jobs in the communities that service these new investments.“

The White House statement also highlights effusive praise for Trump from Darren Woods, who is Tillerson’s successor as Exxon CEO. “Investments of this scale require a pro-growth approach and a stable regulatory environment and we appreciate the President’s commitment to both,” said Woods in a speech in Houston Monday, according to the White House document. “The energy industry has proven it can operate safely and responsibly. Private sector investment is enhanced by this Administration’s support for smart regulations that support growth while protecting the environment.”

Exxon has a lot to be pleased with so far in Trump’s term. In addition to seeing Tillerson become the nation’s top diplomat, the company scored an important victory when Trump signed a bill overturning an Obama-era rule requiring it to disclose payments to foreign governments. And last week, the Environmental Protection Agency withdrew a rule that would require oil and gas companies to report their methane emissions.

Trump is framing Exxon’s announcement as a win for jobs:

I’ve contacted the White House and Exxon Mobil to ask if Tillerson was involved in this announcement and will update if they respond.

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This White House Statement Has Language That Is Nearly Identical to an Exxon Press Release

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Trump Offers to Let Planned Parenthood Keep Its Funding—If It Stops Performing Abortions

by Natalia0857 Posted on March 6, 2017

Mother Jones

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The Trump administration has reportedly tried to cut a deal with Planned Parenthood: You can keep your federal funding—maybe even increase it—if you stop providing abortions.

The informal proposal was revealed Monday by the New York Times.

Not surprisingly, the White House offer was a non-starter. Planned Parenthood executive vice president Dawn Laguens told the Times that the women’s health care organization rejected the idea out of hand. “Offering money to Planned Parenthood to abandon our patients and our values is not a deal that we will ever accept,” she said.

Currently, several proposals to defund Planned Parenthood are moving through Congress. One was approved by the House, another was introduced in the Senate, and a third cropped up in a draft of the proposed bill to repeal Obamacare. The measures would make Planned Parenthood and any other clinic that offers abortions “prohibited entities” for the use of Medicaid. This means that low-income patients with Medicaid coverage would be barred from using their federally funded benefits at Planned Parenthood—even to obtain non-abortion health care, such as pap smears, cervical cancer screenings, STI testing, and contraception. It is already illegal for Medicaid to cover most abortions, and it has been for more than 40 years.

In the last Congress, a broader bill to deny federal funds to Planned Parenthood passed both chambers, but it was vetoed by then-President Barack Obama. Donald Trump, however, said repeatedly on the campaign trail that defunding Planned Parenthood would be a priority for his administration.

Since Inauguration Day, it’s become increasingly apparent that even some Republicans are worried about the political repercussions of defunding Planned Parenthood, particularly through the Obamacare repeal. “We are just walking into a gigantic political trap if we go down this path of sticking Planned Parenthood in the health insurance bill,” said Rep. John Faso (R-N.Y.) in leaked audio of a closed-door meeting obtained by the Washington Post in January.

It would seem that the deal-maker-in-chief is trying to avoid any possible backlash over a crackdown on Planned Parenthood funding. The Times reported that White House officials have even offered a possible increase in federal money for Planned Parenthood if it stops providing abortions.

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Trump Offers to Let Planned Parenthood Keep Its Funding—If It Stops Performing Abortions

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