Category: usa

The reauthorization came despite bipartisan concerns about Section 702, which allows the government to collect communications from non-U.S. citizens overseas without a warrant.
The legislation passed the Senate 60 to 34, with 17 Democrats, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and 16 Republicans voting “nay.” It extends the controversial Section 702 for two more years.

The bill had already passed last week in the U.S. House of Representatives,
explains CNN:

Under FISA’s Section 702, the government hoovers up massive amounts of internet and cell phone data on foreign targets. Hundreds of thousands of Americans’ information is incidentally collected during that process and then accessed each year without a warrant — down from millions of such queries the US government ran in past years. Critics refer to these queries as “backdoor” searches…

According to one assessment, it forms the basis of most of the intelligence the president views each morning and it has helped the U.S. keep tabs on Russia’s intentions in Ukraine, identify foreign efforts to access US infrastructure, uncover foreign terror networks and thwart terror attacks in the U.S.

An interesting detail from The Verge:

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Josh Hawley (R-MO) introduced an amendment that would have struck language in the House bill that expanded the definition of “electronic communications service provider.” Under the House’s new provision, anyone “who has access to equipment that is being or may be used to transmit or store wire or electronic communications.” The expansion, Wyden has claimed, would force “ordinary Americans and small businesses to conduct secret, warrantless spying.” The Wyden-Hawley amendment failed 34-58, meaning that the next iteration of the FISA surveillance program will be more expansive than before.

Saturday morning the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill banning TikTok if its Chinese owner doesn’t sell the app.

An anonymous reader shared this report from Security Week:

Economic analysis and litigation support firm Greylock McKinnon Associates, Inc. (GMA) is notifying over 340,000 individuals that their personal and medical information was compromised in a year-old data breach. The incident was detected on May 30, 2023, but it took the firm roughly eight months to investigate and determine what type of information was compromised and to identify the impacted individuals.

According to GMA’s notification letter to the affected individuals, a copy of which was submitted to the Maine Attorney General’s Office, both personal and Medicare information was compromised in the data breach… “This information may have included your name, date of birth, address, Medicare Health Insurance Claim Number (which contains a Social Security number associated with a member) and some medical information and/or health insurance information,” the notification letter reads.

The compromised data, GMA says, was obtained by the US Department of Justice “as part of a civil litigation matter”. More than 340,000 individuals were affected by the data breach, the company told the Maine Attorney General’s Office. The impacted individuals, however, are “not the subject of this investigation or the associated litigation matters”, the company tells the affected individuals.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) led the Blueprint’s development in collaboration with the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal agencies. The Blueprint is the first sector-wide strategy for building decarbonization developed by the federal government… “America’s building sector accounts for more than a third of the harmful emissions jeopardizing our air and health…” said U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm. “As part of a whole-of-government approach, the Department of Energy is outlining for the first time ever a comprehensive federal plan to reduce energy in our homes, schools, and workplaces — lowering utility bills and creating healthier communities while combating the climate crisis.”

Buildings account for more than one third of domestic climate pollution and $370 billion in annual energy costs… The Blueprint projects reductions of 90% of total greenhouse gas emissions from the buildings sector, which will save consumers more than $100 billion in annual energy costs and avoid $17 billion in annual health costs.
Just for example, the Department of Energy’s Affordable Home Energy Shot program “aims to reduce the upfront cost of upgrading a home by at least 50% and reduce energy bills by 20% within a decade.” (Meanwhile, the federal government’s role in making more change happen faster includes financing, funding R&D on lower-cost technologies, expanding markets, and “supporting the development and implementation of emissions-reducing building codes and appliance standards.”)

Besides the national blueprint, the Department also announced an expansion of its Better Buildings Commercial Building Heat Pump Accelerator initiative. In this program, “manufacturers will produce higher efficiency and life cycle cost-effective heat pump rooftop units and commercial organizations will evaluate and adopt next-generation heat pump technology.”
U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer M. Granholm said the program “builds on more than a decade of public-private partnerships to get cutting edge clean technologies from lab to market, helping to slash harmful carbon emissions throughout our economy.”

On average, between 20% and 30% of the nation’s energy is wasted, presenting a significant opportunity to increase energy efficiency. Through the Better Buildings Initiative, DOE partners with public and private sector stakeholders to pursue ambitious portfolio-wide energy, waste, water, and/or emissions reduction goals and publicly share solutions. By improving building design, materials, equipment, and operations, energy efficiency gains can be achieved across broad segments of the nation’s economy.

The Accelerator initiative was developed with commercial end users like Amazon, IKEA, and Target, and already includes manufacturers AAON, Carrier Global Corp., Lennox International, Rheem Manufacturing Co., Trane Technologies, and York International Corp. The Accelerator aims to bring more efficient, affordable next-generation heat pump rooftop units to market as soon as 2027 — which will slash both emissions and energy costs in half compared to natural gas-fueled heat pumps. If deployed at scale, they could save American businesses and commercial entities $5 billion on utility bills every year.

The money comes from the Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund established by President Biden’s signature climate law, the Inflation Reduction Act. The fund seeks to leverage public and private dollars to invest in clean-energy technologies such as solar panels, heat pumps and more.

The program is potentially one of the most consequential — yet least understood — parts of the climate law…

Simply put, the program allows people to access low-interest loans for clean-energy projects that they might not otherwise have received. Imagine a community group that wants to install electric vehicle charging stations at its neighborhood recreation center but can’t get a loan from a bank or a lender. As is often the case, potential lenders say they’re hesitant to support a novel green technology or a business without a track record of success. Low-income and minority communities have long encountered such obstacles in trying to attract private capital. The program aims to overcome this problem by providing a huge influx of federal cash — $27 billion in total — for nonprofit organizations to dole out to clean-energy projects nationwide. Each nonprofit will serve as a “green bank” that offers more favorable lending rates than commercial banks. “It’s just really hard to get banks to bring capital into low-income communities, especially for these new projects that they’re not used to financing,” said Adrian Deveny, the founder of the firm Climate Vision and the former director of energy and environmental policy for Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), a key architect of the Inflation Reduction Act….

The EPA is awarding money to eight nonprofits, which have committed to leverage nearly $7 in private capital for every $1 of federal investment. The nonprofits have also pledged to ensure that at least 70 percent of the funds will benefit disadvantaged communities, and that the financed projects will reduce up to 40 million metric tons of carbon dioxide a year — equivalent to the annual emissions of nearly 9 million gasoline-powered cars… [The nonprofit] Coalition for Green Capital, will use a $5 billion award to establish a “national green bank,” co-founder and CEO Reed Hundt said. “We’re going to be able to cause about $100 billion of total additional investment over a seven-year time period with that number, because we can leverage it,” Hundt said.

Three years later, a new Amazon SEC filing reveals how much zip codes can matter, even to Bezos, the third richest person in the world. GeekWire reports: “A new Amazon [SEC] filing, detailing Jeff Bezos’ plan to sell a slice of his stake in the company, sheds fresh light on his move from Seattle to Miami — and his ability to avoid Washington state’s capital gains tax [ironically, earmarked to be funneled into early-childhood education programs and school construction] in the process. The filing reveals that the Amazon founder and executive chairman adopted a trading plan Nov. 8 to sell up to 50 million Amazon shares during a period ending in January 2025. It would be the first time he has sold Amazon stock since 2021. The plan was adopted less than a week after Bezos announced on Instagram, on Nov. 2, that he was leaving his longtime home of Seattle for sunnier skies in Miami. In his Instagram post, Bezos said he wanted to be closer to his parents and Blue Origin space venture in Florida. He did not mention taxes.”

“Given Bezos’ recent move out of Washington — where he founded and built Amazon into a global behemoth — he will also be saving around $600 million in tax expense if he ends up selling the maximum of 50 million shares under the plan, based on the company’s current stock price. That’s around $600 million in what would have otherwise been tax revenue for his former home state, as The Center Square reported Monday. The capital gains tax, passed in 2021, imposes a 7% tax on any gains of more than $250,000 from the sale of stocks and bonds, with some exceptions. It was challenged in court but ultimately ruled constitutional by the state Supreme Court last year. The tax brought in nearly $900 million in its first year of collection. Revenue goes toward early education and childcare programs, as well as school construction projects.”

It’s of course no secret that Bezos is no fan of taxes — he explored founding Amazon on an Indian reservation near San Francisco to avoid taxes, ponied up $100,000 to defeat a proposed WA state income tax aimed at improving WA state public education (joined in the fight by Microsoft and Steve Ballmer), characterized as unconstitutional attempts to make Amazon collect and pay sales taxes, and came under fire by ProPublica for paying no income tax in some years.

The draft order focuses on ways that foreign adversaries are gaining access to Americans’ “highly sensitive” personal data — from genetic information to location — through legal means. That includes obtaining information through intermediaries, such as data brokers, third-party vendor agreements, employment agreements or investment agreements, according to a draft of the proposed order. In addition, organizations owned, controlled or operated by “countries of concern” are often obligated to hand such data over to the government when asked.

Mayorkas gave two examples of how the task force will help determine how AI could be used to fine-tune the agency’s work. One is to deploy AI into DHS systems that screen cargo for goods produced by forced labor. The second is to use the technology to better detect fentanyl in shipments to the U.S., as well as identifying and stopping the flow of “precursor chemicals” used to produce the dangerous drug.

Mayorkas asked Homeland Security Advisory Council Co-Chair Jamie Gorelick to study “the intersection of AI and homeland security and deliver findings that will help guide our use of it and defense against it.”

The article also notes that earlier this week America’s defense department hired a former Google AI cloud director to serve as its first advisor on AI, robotics, cloud computing and data analytics.

Renewables surpassed nuclear generation for the first time in 2021, and that trend continued last year. Nuclear dropped from 20% in 2021 to 19% in 2022 because Michigan’s Palisades nuclear power plant was retired in May 2022. However, Palisades’ new owner, Holtec, wants to restart it, and this idea is not proving particularly popular, with one environmental group saying that would risk a “Chernobyl-scale catastrophe.” The Biden administration pledged $6 billion on March 2 to help extend the operating life of aging nuclear power plants in order to help the US combat climate change. However, natural gas is still the largest source of US electricity generation, and it grew from 37% in 2021 to 39% in 2022. This month, the EIA forecast that both wind and solar will each grow by 1% in 2023. Natural gas is forecast to remain unchanged, and coal is forecast to decline by 3% to 17% next year.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Sunday instructed the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation to guarantee Silicon Valley Bank customers will have access to all of their money starting Monday.

By guaranteeing all deposits — even the uninsured money customers kept with the failed SVB bank — the government can ensure public confidence in America’s banking system, said Yellen, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell and FDIC Chairman Martin J. Gruenberg in a joint statement….

The FDIC opened an auction Sunday for bids to acquire the bank, the Treasury Department said in a briefing with lawmakers in the California delegation, two sources familiar with the briefing told CNN…. Under Secretary for Domestic Finance Nellie Liang and Assistant Secretary for Legislative Affairs Jonathan Davidson led the briefing, during which they told members that the FDIC is prepared “to operate the institution” to ensure depositors can maintain payroll for their employees and that more operations will emerge in coming days, one of the sources said.

The treasury secretary’s statement clarified that “No losses associated with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank will be borne by the taxpayer.”

We are also announcing a similar systemic risk exception for Signature Bank, New York, New York, which was closed today by its state chartering authority. All depositors of this institution will be made whole. As with the resolution of Silicon Valley Bank, no losses will be borne by the taxpayer. Shareholders and certain unsecured debtholders will not be protected. Senior management has also been removed. Any losses to the Deposit Insurance Fund to support uninsured depositors will be recovered by a special assessment on banks, as required by law.

Finally, the Federal Reserve Board on Sunday announced it will make available additional funding to eligible depository institutions to help assure banks have the ability to meet the needs of all their depositors.

Meanwhile, congresswoman Nancy Pelosi said there are multiple potential buyers for SVB, and “What we would hope to see by tomorrow morning is for some other bank to buy the bank.” The UK arm of the bank has already received a bid from the Bank of London.

From the treasury secretary’s statement:

The U.S. banking system remains resilient and on a solid foundation, in large part due to reforms that were made after the financial crisis that ensured better safeguards for the banking industry.

Those reforms combined with today’s actions demonstrate our commitment to take the necessary steps to ensure that depositors’ savings remain safe.

Wood’s plight, echoed by farmers across the country, has pushed lawmakers in Colorado and 10 other states to introduce bills that would force manufacturers to provide the tools, software, parts and manuals needed for farmers to do their own repairs — thereby avoiding steep labor costs and delays that imperil profits….

The manufacturers argue that changing the current practice with this type of legislation would force companies to expose trade secrets. They also say it would make it easier for farmers to tinker with the software and illegally crank up the horsepower and bypass the emissions controller — risking operators’ safety and the environment…. “I know growers, if they can change horsepower and they can change emissions they are going to do it,” said Russ Ball, sales manager at 21st Century Equipment, a John Deere dealership in Western states.
The bill’s proponents acknowledged that the legislation could make it easier for operators to modify horsepower and emissions controls, but argued that farmers are already able to tinker with their machines and doing so would remain illegal.

The article quotes Wood’s representative in Congress, who also argues that local dealerships in rural areas would be impacted by the legislation. “I do sympathize with my farmers,” he’s quoted as saying, but added “I don’t think it’s the role of government to be forcing the sale of their intellectual property.”