LABOR, ECONOMY & THE CLIMATE - page 47

While one federal agency was last week dishing out money in a bid to mitigate the impact of the drought out west, another was looking like it made the situation worse there, in part of the region, over the past few years. The Office of Special Counsel said Friday that it will tell The Department of the Interior to look into how its Bureau of Reclamation spent millions of dollars on a conservation project in Northern California and Southern Oregon. The payments, which started in 2008,… Keep Reading

A report released Tuesday revealed that the United States’ largest trading partner could already be in a recession. Statistics Canada, a key public sector research arm, said that the country’s gross domestic product decreased by 0.1 percent in April. Since the new year, the Canadian economy has contracted every month—a trend caused by falling energy prices. A country is considered officially in recession if its GDP shrinks every month for a half-year. Any continued stagnation in Canada will spell bad news for American workers. In… Keep Reading

The administration is sending mixed messages to the government of Greece, following an announcement from Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras that his country will default on upcoming payments to European creditors. “We’ve long made clear that we expect the Greeks to keep their commitments,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters on Monday, responding to news that Greece will default on a more than $1.5 billion euro payment due to the International Monetary Fund on Tuesday. That announcement from Leftist Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras runs counter… Keep Reading

In siding against the Arizona state legislature, the Supreme Court avoided diluting the power of direct democracy in the US. The court ruled in a 5-4 decision that a panel created by a 2000 anti-gerrymandering referendum had proper authority to redraw federal congressional districts. The dissenting conservative justices argued that the Elections Clause of the US Constitution only permitted state legislatures with the power. “The history and purpose of the Clause weigh heavily against such preclusion,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wrote for the majority, “as… Keep Reading

Some of America’s richest families have spent millions of dollars lobbying to receive what would be a multi-billion dollar windfall in the form of an inheritance tax repeal. The effort, according to a report issued by Public Citizen, puts under the microscope conservatives’ objections to the impact of what they routinely describe as an anti-Main Street “death tax.” “Despite claims by opponents of the estate tax that their efforts to repeal it are driven by concerns over family farms and small businesses, nine families owning approximately… Keep Reading

A pair of Supreme Court rulings announced Thursday shocked Conservative activists and moneyed interests who thought the majority of justices would vote to roll back Americans’ access to health care and housing. In the most prominent decision announced on the day, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the left flank of the court in upholding a key section of the Affordable Care Act. The move deemed it legal for the federal government to provide subsidies to millions of Americans enrolled in “Obamacare”… Keep Reading

The majority of children in the US under the age of five was non-white last year, marking the first time since the country’s establishment that white kids in the age cohort constituted a mere plurality. The Census Bureau said on Thursday that America’s youngest children were “majority-minority” in 2014, with those not classified as “non-Hispanic, single race white” making up 50.2 percent of their population. Noting that Millennials—Americans born between 1982 and 2000—are less ethnically homogeneous than baby-boomers, the bureau pointed out that “the population as… Keep Reading

As Congress looks set to pass a bill that would usher in the advancement of more sweeping multilateral trade deals, the introduction of another bill this week shows how American lawmakers have struggled to retain the ability to legislate after past agreements. Senate agriculture committee ranking member Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) is introducing a proposal to amend federal laws after an international tribunal in May confirmed that American “country-of-origin labeling” (COOL) food product laws violate World Trade Organization rules. “This approach is a pathway to finding… Keep Reading

Trade Promotion Authority (TPA) cleared a key procedural hurdle on Tuesday, and the bill is likely to pass Congress this week, yet White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest refused to tip the administration’s hand by saying when President Obama will sign the cornerstone legislation of his trade agenda. A final vote on TPA could come as early as Wednesday, securing a major victory for the administration as it seeks to finalize the sweeping Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement—a controversial free trade deal involving 12 Pacific… Keep Reading

President Obama has refused to tell one lawmaker if the Trans-Pacific Partnership will enable American tobacco companies to undermine public health regulations, he said. Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), a vociferous TPP opponent, claimed that the President and his lead negotiator, US Trade Representative Michael Froman, have maintained a wall of silence on the matter despite his repeated efforts to get a straight answer. “Even something this is clearly violative of the public interest and of public health as the damage big tobacco inflicts on children—even… Keep Reading

With Congress and the White House mired in a debate over defense policy and appropriations bills, one Democratic lawmaker pressed his colleagues to consider the consequences—both at home and abroad—of profligate Pentagon spending. Describing what he called “the waste of war,” Rep. John Garamendi (D-Calif.) spoke out against increased funding to maintain the nation’s nuclear arsenal “We are now in the first quarter of a new nuclear arms race. It involves Russia and China, France, United Kingdom, and the United States are all rebuilding,” he said,… Keep Reading