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Tag: Construction and engineering

  • What is carbon capture and why does it keep coming up at COP28?

    What is carbon capture and why does it keep coming up at COP28?

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    The future of fossil fuels is at the center of the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, where many activists, experts and nations are calling for an agreement to phase out the oil, gas and coal responsible for warming the planet. On the other side: energy companies and oil-rich nations with plans to keep drilling well into the future.

    In the background of those discussions are carbon capture and carbon removal, technologies most, if not all, producers are counting on to meet their pledges to get to net-zero emissions. Skeptics worry the technology is being oversold to allow the industry to maintain the status quo.

    “The industry needs to commit to genuinely helping the world meet its energy needs and climate goals – which means letting go of the illusion that implausibly large amounts of carbon capture are the solution,” International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol said before the start of talks.

    WHAT EXACTLY IS CARBON CAPTURE?

    Lots of industrial facilities like coal-fired power plants and ethanol plants produce carbon dioxide. To stop those planet-warming emissions from reaching the atmosphere, businesses can install equipment to separate that gas from all the other gases coming out of the smokestack, and transport it to where it can be permanently stored underground. And even for industries trying to reduce emissions, some are likely to always produce some carbon, like cement manufacturers that use a chemical process that releases CO2.

    “We call that a mitigation technology, a way to stop the increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere,” said Karl Hausker, an expert on getting to net-zero emissions at World Resources Institute, a climate-focused nonprofit that supports sharp fossil fuel reductions along with a limited role for carbon capture.

    The captured carbon is concentrated into a form that can be transported in a vehicle or through a pipeline to a place where it can be injected underground for long-term storage.

    Then there’s carbon removal. Instead of capturing carbon from a single, concentrated source, the objective is to remove carbon that’s already in the atmosphere. This already happens when forests are restored, for example, but there’s a push to deploy technology, too. One type directly captures it from the air, using chemicals to pull out carbon dioxide as air passes through.

    For some, carbon removal is essential during a global transition to clean energy that will take years. For example, despite notable gains for electric vehicles in some countries, gas-fired cars will be operating well into the future. And some industries, like shipping and aviation, are challenging to fully decarbonize.

    “We have to remove some of what’s in the atmosphere in addition to stopping the emissions,” said Jennifer Pett-Ridge, who leads the federally supported Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s carbon initiative in the U.S., the world’s second-leading emitter of greenhouse gases.

    HOW IS IT GOING?

    Many experts say the technology to capture carbon and store it works, but it’s expensive, and it’s still in the early days of deployment.

    There are about 40 large-scale carbon capture projects in operation around the world capturing roughly 45 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, according to the International Energy Agency. That’s a tiny amount — roughly 0.1% — of the 36.8 billion metric tons emitted globally as tallied by the Global Carbon Project.

    The IEA says the history of carbon capture “has largely been one of unmet expectations.” The group analyzed how the world can achieve net zero emissions and its guide path relies heavily on lowering emissions by slashing fossil fuel use. Carbon capture is just a sliver of the solution — less than 10% — but despite its comparatively small role, its expansion is still behind schedule.

    The pace of new projects is picking up, but they face significant obstacles. In the United States, there’s opposition to CO2 pipelines that move carbon to storage sites. Safety is one concern; in 2020, a CO2 pipeline in Mississippi ruptured, releasing carbon dioxide that displaced breathable air near the ground and sent dozens of people to hospitals. The federal government is working on improving safety standards.

    Companies can also run into difficulty getting permits. South Dakota regulators this year, for example, rejected a construction permit for a 1,300-mile network of CO2 pipelines in the Midwest to move carbon to a storage site in Illinois.

    The technology to remove carbon directly from the air exists too, but its broad deployment is even further away and especially costly.

    WHO’S SUPPORTING CARBON CAPTURE?

    The American Petroleum Institute says oil and gas will remain a critical energy source for decades, meaning that in order for the world to reduce its carbon emissions, rapidly expanding carbon capture technology is “key to cleaner energy use across the economy.” A check of most oil companies’ plans to get to net-zero emissions also finds most of them relying on carbon capture in some way.

    The Biden administration wants more investment in carbon capture and removal, too, building off America’s comparatively large spending compared with the rest of the world. But it’s an industry that needs subsidies to attract private financing. The Inflation Reduction Act makes tax benefits much more generous. Investors can get a $180 per ton credit for removing carbon from the air and storing it underground, for example. And the Department of Energy has billions to support new projects.

    “What we are talking about now is taking a technology that has been proven and has been tested, but applying it much more broadly and also applying it in sectors where there is a higher cost to deploy,” said Jessie Stolark, executive director of the Carbon Capture Coalition, an industry advocacy group.

    Investment is picking up. The EPA is considering dozens of applications for wells that can store carbon. And in places like Louisiana and North Dakota, local leaders are fighting to attract projects and investment.

    Even left-leaning California has an ambitious climate plan that incorporates carbon capture and removing carbon directly out of the air. Leaders say there’s no other way to get emissions to zero.

    WHO’S AGAINST IT?

    Some environmentalists argue that fossil fuel companies are holding up carbon capture to distract from the need to quickly phase out oil, gas and coal.

    “The fossil fuel industry has proven itself to be dangerous and deceptive,” said Shaye Wolf, climate science director at Center for Biological Diversity.

    There are other problems. Some projects haven’t met their carbon removal targets. A 2021 U.S. government accountability report said that of eight demonstration projects aimed at capturing and storing carbon from coal plants, just one had started operating at the time the report was published despite hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.

    Opponents also note that carbon capture can serve to prolong the life of a polluting plant that would otherwise shut down sooner. That can especially hurt poorer, minority communities that have long lived near heavily polluting facilities.

    They also note that most of the carbon captured in the U.S. now eventually gets injected into the ground to force out more oil, a process called enhanced oil recovery.

    Hausker said it’s essential that governments set policies that force less fossil fuel use — which can then be complemented by carbon capture and carbon removal.

    “We aren’t going to ask Exxon, ‘pretty please, stop developing fossil fuels,’” he said.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • What is carbon capture and why does it keep coming up at COP28?

    What is carbon capture and why does it keep coming up at COP28?

    [ad_1]

    The future of fossil fuels is at the center of the United Nations climate summit in Dubai, where many activists, experts and nations are calling for an agreement to phase out the oil, gas and coal responsible for warming the planet. On the other side: energy companies and oil-rich nations with plans to keep drilling well into the future.

    In the background of those discussions are carbon capture and carbon removal, technologies most, if not all, producers are counting on to meet their pledges to get to net-zero emissions. Skeptics worry the technology is being oversold to allow the industry to maintain the status quo.

    “The industry needs to commit to genuinely helping the world meet its energy needs and climate goals – which means letting go of the illusion that implausibly large amounts of carbon capture are the solution,” International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol said before the start of talks.

    WHAT EXACTLY IS CARBON CAPTURE?

    Lots of industrial facilities like coal-fired power plants and ethanol plants produce carbon dioxide. To stop those planet-warming emissions from reaching the atmosphere, businesses can install equipment to separate that gas from all the other gases coming out of the smokestack, and transport it to where it can be permanently stored underground. And even for industries trying to reduce emissions, some are likely to always produce some carbon, like cement manufacturers that use a chemical process that releases CO2.

    “We call that a mitigation technology, a way to stop the increased concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere,” said Karl Hausker, an expert on getting to net-zero emissions at World Resources Institute, a climate-focused nonprofit that supports sharp fossil fuel reductions along with a limited role for carbon capture.

    The captured carbon is concentrated into a form that can be transported in a vehicle or through a pipeline to a place where it can be injected underground for long-term storage.

    Then there’s carbon removal. Instead of capturing carbon from a single, concentrated source, the objective is to remove carbon that’s already in the atmosphere. This already happens when forests are restored, for example, but there’s a push to deploy technology, too. One type directly captures it from the air, using chemicals to pull out carbon dioxide as air passes through.

    For some, carbon removal is essential during a global transition to clean energy that will take years. For example, despite notable gains for electric vehicles in some countries, gas-fired cars will be operating well into the future. And some industries, like shipping and aviation, are challenging to fully decarbonize.

    “We have to remove some of what’s in the atmosphere in addition to stopping the emissions,” said Jennifer Pett-Ridge, who leads the federally supported Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s carbon initiative in the U.S., the world’s second-leading emitter of greenhouse gases.

    HOW IS IT GOING?

    Many experts say the technology to capture carbon and store it works, but it’s expensive, and it’s still in the early days of deployment.

    There are about 40 large-scale carbon capture projects in operation around the world capturing roughly 45 million metric tons of carbon dioxide each year, according to the International Energy Agency. That’s a tiny amount — roughly 0.1% — of the 36.8 billion metric tons emitted globally as tallied by the Global Carbon Project.

    The IEA says the history of carbon capture “has largely been one of unmet expectations.” The group analyzed how the world can achieve net zero emissions and its guide path relies heavily on lowering emissions by slashing fossil fuel use. Carbon capture is just a sliver of the solution — less than 10% — but despite its comparatively small role, its expansion is still behind schedule.

    The pace of new projects is picking up, but they face significant obstacles. In the United States, there’s opposition to CO2 pipelines that move carbon to storage sites. Safety is one concern; in 2020, a CO2 pipeline in Mississippi ruptured, releasing carbon dioxide that displaced breathable air near the ground and sent dozens of people to hospitals. The federal government is working on improving safety standards.

    Companies can also run into difficulty getting permits. South Dakota regulators this year, for example, rejected a construction permit for a 1,300-mile network of CO2 pipelines in the Midwest to move carbon to a storage site in Illinois.

    The technology to remove carbon directly from the air exists too, but its broad deployment is even further away and especially costly.

    WHO’S SUPPORTING CARBON CAPTURE?

    The American Petroleum Institute says oil and gas will remain a critical energy source for decades, meaning that in order for the world to reduce its carbon emissions, rapidly expanding carbon capture technology is “key to cleaner energy use across the economy.” A check of most oil companies’ plans to get to net-zero emissions also finds most of them relying on carbon capture in some way.

    The Biden administration wants more investment in carbon capture and removal, too, building off America’s comparatively large spending compared with the rest of the world. But it’s an industry that needs subsidies to attract private financing. The Inflation Reduction Act makes tax benefits much more generous. Investors can get a $180 per ton credit for removing carbon from the air and storing it underground, for example. And the Department of Energy has billions to support new projects.

    “What we are talking about now is taking a technology that has been proven and has been tested, but applying it much more broadly and also applying it in sectors where there is a higher cost to deploy,” said Jessie Stolark, executive director of the Carbon Capture Coalition, an industry advocacy group.

    Investment is picking up. The EPA is considering dozens of applications for wells that can store carbon. And in places like Louisiana and North Dakota, local leaders are fighting to attract projects and investment.

    Even left-leaning California has an ambitious climate plan that incorporates carbon capture and removing carbon directly out of the air. Leaders say there’s no other way to get emissions to zero.

    WHO’S AGAINST IT?

    Some environmentalists argue that fossil fuel companies are holding up carbon capture to distract from the need to quickly phase out oil, gas and coal.

    “The fossil fuel industry has proven itself to be dangerous and deceptive,” said Shaye Wolf, climate science director at Center for Biological Diversity.

    There are other problems. Some projects haven’t met their carbon removal targets. A 2021 U.S. government accountability report said that of eight demonstration projects aimed at capturing and storing carbon from coal plants, just one had started operating at the time the report was published despite hundreds of millions of dollars in funding.

    Opponents also note that carbon capture can serve to prolong the life of a polluting plant that would otherwise shut down sooner. That can especially hurt poorer, minority communities that have long lived near heavily polluting facilities.

    They also note that most of the carbon captured in the U.S. now eventually gets injected into the ground to force out more oil, a process called enhanced oil recovery.

    Hausker said it’s essential that governments set policies that force less fossil fuel use — which can then be complemented by carbon capture and carbon removal.

    “We aren’t going to ask Exxon, ‘pretty please, stop developing fossil fuels,’” he said.

    ___

    The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment

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  • Humanoid robots are here, but they’re a little awkward. Do we really need them?

    Humanoid robots are here, but they’re a little awkward. Do we really need them?

    [ad_1]

    Building a robot that’s both human-like and useful is a decades-old engineering dream inspired by popular science fiction.

    While the latest artificial intelligence craze has sparked another wave of investments in the quest to build a humanoid, most of the current prototypes are clumsy and impractical, looking better in staged performances than in real life. That hasn’t stopped a handful of startups from keeping at it.

    “The intention is not to start from the beginning and say, ‘Hey, we’re trying to make a robot look like a person,’” said Jonathan Hurst, co-founder and chief robot officer at Agility Robotics. “We’re trying to make robots that can operate in human spaces.”

    Do we even need humanoids? Hurst makes a point of describing Agility’s warehouse robot Digit as human-centric, not humanoid, a distinction meant to emphasize what it does over what it’s trying to be.

    What it does, for now, is pick up tote bins and move them. Amazon announced in October it will begin testing Digits for use in its warehouses, and Agility opened an Oregon factory in September to mass produce them.

    Digit has a head containing cameras, other sensors and animated eyes, and a torso that essentially works as its engine. It has two arms and two legs, but its legs are more bird-like than human, with an inverted knees appearance that resembles so-called digitigrade animals such as birds, cats and dogs that walk on their toes rather than on flat feet.

    Rival robot-makers, like Figure AI, are taking a more purist approach on the idea that only true humanoids can effectively navigate workplaces, homes and a society built for humans. Figure also plans to start with a relatively simple use case, such as in a retail warehouse, but aims for a commercial robot that can be “iterated on like an iPhone” to perform multiple tasks to take up the work of humans as birth rates decline around the world.

    “There’s not enough people doing these jobs, so the market’s massive,” said Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock. “If we can just get humanoids to do work that humans are not wanting to do because there’s a shortfall of humans, we can sell millions of humanoids, billions maybe.”

    At the moment, however, Adcock’s firm doesn’t have a prototype that’s ready for market. Founded just over a year ago and after having raised tens of millions of dollars, it recently revealed a 38-second video of Figure walking through its test facility in Sunnyvale, California.

    Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also trying to build a humanoid, called Optimus, through the electric car-maker’s robotics division, but a hyped-up live demonstration last year of the robot’s awkwardly halting steps didn’t impress experts in the robotics field. Seemingly farther along is Tesla’s Austin, Texas-based neighbor Apptronik, which unveiled its Apollo humanoid in an August video demonstration.

    All the attention — and money — poured into making ungainly humanoid machines might make the whole enterprise seem like a futile hobby for wealthy technologists, but for some pioneers of legged robots it’s all about what you learn along the way.

    “Not only about their design and operation, but also about how people respond to them, and about the critical underlying technologies for mobility, dexterity, perception and intelligence,” said Marc Raibert, the co-founder of Boston Dynamics, best known for its dog-like robots named Spot.

    Raibert said sometimes the path of development is not along a straight line. Boston Dynamics, now a subsidiary of carmaker Hyundai, experimented with building a humanoid that could handle boxes.

    “That led to development of a new robot that was not really a humanoid, but had several characteristics of a humanoid,” he said via an emailed message. “But the changes resulted in a new robot that could handle boxes faster, could work longer hours, and could operate in tight spaces, such as a truck. So humanoid research led to a useful non-humanoid robot.”

    Some startups aiming for human-like machines focused on improving the dexterity of robotic fingers before trying to get their robots to walk.

    Walking is “not the hardest problem to solve in humanoid robotics,” said Geordie Rose, co-founder and CEO of British Columbia, Canada-based startup Sanctuary AI. “The hardest problem is the problem of understanding the world and being able to manipulate it with your hands.”

    Sanctuary’s newest and first bipedal robot, Phoenix, can stock shelves, unload delivery vehicles and operate a checkout, early steps toward what Rose sees as a much longer-term goal of getting robots to perceive the physical world to be able to reason about it in a way that resembles intelligence. Like other humanoids, it’s meant to look endearing, because how it interacts with real people is a big part of its function.

    “We want to be able to provide labor to the world, not just for one thing, but for everybody who needs it,” Rose said. “The systems have to be able to think like people. So we could call that artificial general intelligence if you’d like. But what I mean more specifically is the systems have to be able to understand speech and they need to be able to convert the understanding of speech into action, which will satisfy job roles across the entire economy.”

    Agility’s Digit robot caught Amazon’s attention because it can walk and also move around in a way that could complement the e-commerce giant’s existing fleet of vehicle-like robots that move large carts around its vast warehouses.

    “The mobility aspect is more interesting than the actual form,” said Tye Brady, Amazon’s chief technologist for robotics, after the company showed it off at a media event in Seattle.

    Right now, Digit is being tested to help with the repetitive task of picking up and moving empty totes. But just having it there is bound to resurrect some fears about robots taking people’s jobs, a narrative Amazon is trying to prevent from taking hold.

    Agility Robotics co-founder and CEO Damion Shelton said the warehouse robot is “just the first use case” of a new generation of robots he hopes will be embraced rather than feared as they prepare to enter businesses and homes.

    “So in 10, 20 years, you’re going to see these robots everywhere,” Shelton said. “Forever more, human- centric robots like that are going to be part of human life. So that’s pretty exciting.”

    —-

    AP writer Haleluya Hadero contributed to this report.

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  • Humanoid robots are here, but they’re a little awkward. Do we really need them?

    Humanoid robots are here, but they’re a little awkward. Do we really need them?

    [ad_1]

    Building a robot that’s both human-like and useful is a decades-old engineering dream inspired by popular science fiction.

    While the latest artificial intelligence craze has sparked another wave of investments in the quest to build a humanoid, most of the current prototypes are clumsy and impractical, looking better in staged performances than in real life. That hasn’t stopped a handful of startups from keeping at it.

    “The intention is not to start from the beginning and say, ‘Hey, we’re trying to make a robot look like a person,’” said Jonathan Hurst, co-founder and chief robot officer at Agility Robotics. “We’re trying to make robots that can operate in human spaces.”

    Do we even need humanoids? Hurst makes a point of describing Agility’s warehouse robot Digit as human-centric, not humanoid, a distinction meant to emphasize what it does over what it’s trying to be.

    What it does, for now, is pick up tote bins and move them. Amazon announced in October it will begin testing Digits for use in its warehouses, and Agility opened an Oregon factory in September to mass produce them.

    Digit has a head containing cameras, other sensors and animated eyes, and a torso that essentially works as its engine. It has two arms and two legs, but its legs are more bird-like than human, with an inverted knees appearance that resembles so-called digitigrade animals such as birds, cats and dogs that walk on their toes rather than on flat feet.

    Rival robot-makers, like Figure AI, are taking a more purist approach on the idea that only true humanoids can effectively navigate workplaces, homes and a society built for humans. Figure also plans to start with a relatively simple use case, such as in a retail warehouse, but aims for a commercial robot that can be “iterated on like an iPhone” to perform multiple tasks to take up the work of humans as birth rates decline around the world.

    “There’s not enough people doing these jobs, so the market’s massive,” said Figure AI CEO Brett Adcock. “If we can just get humanoids to do work that humans are not wanting to do because there’s a shortfall of humans, we can sell millions of humanoids, billions maybe.”

    At the moment, however, Adcock’s firm doesn’t have a prototype that’s ready for market. Founded just over a year ago and after having raised tens of millions of dollars, it recently revealed a 38-second video of Figure walking through its test facility in Sunnyvale, California.

    Tesla CEO Elon Musk is also trying to build a humanoid, called Optimus, through the electric car-maker’s robotics division, but a hyped-up live demonstration last year of the robot’s awkwardly halting steps didn’t impress experts in the robotics field. Seemingly farther along is Tesla’s Austin, Texas-based neighbor Apptronik, which unveiled its Apollo humanoid in an August video demonstration.

    All the attention — and money — poured into making ungainly humanoid machines might make the whole enterprise seem like a futile hobby for wealthy technologists, but for some pioneers of legged robots it’s all about what you learn along the way.

    “Not only about their design and operation, but also about how people respond to them, and about the critical underlying technologies for mobility, dexterity, perception and intelligence,” said Marc Raibert, the co-founder of Boston Dynamics, best known for its dog-like robots named Spot.

    Raibert said sometimes the path of development is not along a straight line. Boston Dynamics, now a subsidiary of carmaker Hyundai, experimented with building a humanoid that could handle boxes.

    “That led to development of a new robot that was not really a humanoid, but had several characteristics of a humanoid,” he said via an emailed message. “But the changes resulted in a new robot that could handle boxes faster, could work longer hours, and could operate in tight spaces, such as a truck. So humanoid research led to a useful non-humanoid robot.”

    Some startups aiming for human-like machines focused on improving the dexterity of robotic fingers before trying to get their robots to walk.

    Walking is “not the hardest problem to solve in humanoid robotics,” said Geordie Rose, co-founder and CEO of British Columbia, Canada-based startup Sanctuary AI. “The hardest problem is the problem of understanding the world and being able to manipulate it with your hands.”

    Sanctuary’s newest and first bipedal robot, Phoenix, can stock shelves, unload delivery vehicles and operate a checkout, early steps toward what Rose sees as a much longer-term goal of getting robots to perceive the physical world to be able to reason about it in a way that resembles intelligence. Like other humanoids, it’s meant to look endearing, because how it interacts with real people is a big part of its function.

    “We want to be able to provide labor to the world, not just for one thing, but for everybody who needs it,” Rose said. “The systems have to be able to think like people. So we could call that artificial general intelligence if you’d like. But what I mean more specifically is the systems have to be able to understand speech and they need to be able to convert the understanding of speech into action, which will satisfy job roles across the entire economy.”

    Agility’s Digit robot caught Amazon’s attention because it can walk and also move around in a way that could complement the e-commerce giant’s existing fleet of vehicle-like robots that move large carts around its vast warehouses.

    “The mobility aspect is more interesting than the actual form,” said Tye Brady, Amazon’s chief technologist for robotics, after the company showed it off at a media event in Seattle.

    Right now, Digit is being tested to help with the repetitive task of picking up and moving empty totes. But just having it there is bound to resurrect some fears about robots taking people’s jobs, a narrative Amazon is trying to prevent from taking hold.

    Agility Robotics co-founder and CEO Damion Shelton said the warehouse robot is “just the first use case” of a new generation of robots he hopes will be embraced rather than feared as they prepare to enter businesses and homes.

    “So in 10, 20 years, you’re going to see these robots everywhere,” Shelton said. “Forever more, human- centric robots like that are going to be part of human life. So that’s pretty exciting.”

    —-

    AP writer Haleluya Hadero contributed to this report.

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  • Navigator cancels proposed Midwestern CO2 pipeline, citing ‘unpredictable’ regulatory processes

    Navigator cancels proposed Midwestern CO2 pipeline, citing ‘unpredictable’ regulatory processes

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    BISMARCK, N.D. — A company on Friday said it would cancel its plans for a 1,300-mile (2,092-kilometer) pipeline across five Midwestern states that would have gathered carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants and buried the gas deep underground.

    Navigator CO2 Ventures’ Heartland Greenway project is among a handful of similar ventures supported by the renewable fuels industry and farming organizations, but opposed by many landowners and environmental groups who question their safety and effectiveness in reducing climate-warming gases.

    In a written statement, the company said the “unpredictable nature of the regulatory and government processes involved, particularly in South Dakota and Iowa” were key to the decision to cancel the project.

    Navigator’s pipeline would have carried planet-warming CO2 emissions from more than 20 plants across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota for permanent storage deep underground in Illinois.

    Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw said carbon capture projects are “the best way to align ethanol production with the increasing demand for low carbon fuels both at home and abroad.” The association saw the Navigator pipeline as an opportunity to open up markets for sustainable aviation fuel for ethanol producers, spokeswoman Emma Koehler told The Associated Press.

    “It is not an overstatement to say that decisions made over the next few months will likely place agriculture on one of two paths. One would lead to 1990s stagnation as corn production exceeds demand, and the other opens new market opportunities larger than anything we’ve ever seen before,” Shaw said in a statement.

    Navigator earlier this month withdrew its application for a crucial permit in Illinois, and also said it was putting all of its permit applications on hold. Those moves came after South Dakota public utilities regulators denied Navigator a construction permit in September.

    The pipeline would have used carbon capture technology, which supporters tout as a combatant of climate change, with federal tax incentives and billions of dollars from Congress, making such efforts lucrative. But opponents question the technology at scale, and say it could require bigger investments than less expensive alternatives such as solar and wind power.

    CO2 pipelines have faced pushback from landowners, who fear a pipeline rupture and that their land will be taken from them for the projects.

    Pipeline opponents welcomed Navigator’s announcement Friday.

    “Everyone said we have no chance against foreign-backed, multibillion-dollar hazardous pipelines but when hundreds of landowners band together with a unified legal strategy, we can win,” said Brian Jorde, an Omaha-based attorney who represents many landowners opposed to Midwestern pipeline projects.

    Regulatory panels in North Dakota and South Dakota dealt blows to Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed $5.5 billion, 2,000-mile (3,219-kilometer) interstate pipeline network. The system would carry CO2 emissions from more than 30 ethanol plants in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, to be buried deep underground in central North Dakota.

    North Dakota regulators denied Summit a siting permit, but granted the company’s request for reconsideration. The South Dakota panel denied the company’s permit application, but Summit intends to reapply.

    Iowa regulators this month suspended a weekslong hearing for Summit’s project, set to resume next month. Minnesota regulators are proceeding with an environmental review for a small part of Summit’s project.

    In a written statement released after Navigator’s announcement, Summit said it “welcomes and is well positioned to add additional plants and communities to our project footprint.”

    “We remain as committed to our project as the day we announced it,” the company said.

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  • Navigator cancels proposed Midwestern CO2 pipeline, citing ‘unpredictable’ regulatory processes

    Navigator cancels proposed Midwestern CO2 pipeline, citing ‘unpredictable’ regulatory processes

    [ad_1]

    BISMARCK, N.D. — A company on Friday said it would cancel its plans for a 1,300-mile (2,092-kilometer) pipeline across five Midwestern states that would have gathered carbon dioxide emissions from ethanol plants and buried the gas deep underground.

    Navigator CO2 Ventures’ Heartland Greenway project is among a handful of similar ventures supported by the renewable fuels industry and farming organizations, but many landowners and environmental groups oppose the pipelines and question their safety and effectiveness in reducing climate-warming gases.

    In a written statement, the company said the “unpredictable nature of the regulatory and government processes involved, particularly in South Dakota and Iowa” were key to the decision to cancel the project.

    Navigator’s pipeline would have carried planet-warming CO2 emissions from more than 20 plants across Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska and South Dakota for permanent storage deep underground in Illinois.

    Iowa Renewable Fuels Association Executive Director Monte Shaw said carbon capture projects are “the best way to align ethanol production with the increasing demand for low carbon fuels both at home and abroad,” and are essential “to unlocking the 100-billion-gallon sustainable aviation fuel market for agriculture, in the long term.”

    “It is not an overstatement to say that decisions made over the next few months will likely place agriculture on one of two paths. One would lead to 1990s stagnation as corn production exceeds demand, and the other opens new market opportunities larger than anything we’ve ever seen before,” he said in a statement.

    Navigator earlier this month withdrew its application for a crucial permit in Illinois, and also said it was putting all of its permit applications on hold. Those moves came after South Dakota public utilities regulators denied Navigator a construction permit in September.

    The pipeline would have used carbon capture technology, which supporters tout as a combatant of climate change, with federal tax incentives and billions of dollars from Congress, making such efforts lucrative. But opponents question the technology at scale, and say it could require bigger investments than less expensive alternatives such as solar and wind power.

    CO2 pipelines have faced pushback from landowners, who fear a pipeline rupture and that their land will be taken from them for the projects.

    Pipeline opponents welcomed Navigator’s announcement Friday.

    “Everyone said we have no chance against foreign-backed, multibillion-dollar hazardous pipelines but when hundreds of landowners band together with a unified legal strategy, we can win,” said Brian Jorde, an Omaha-based attorney who represents many landowners opposed to Midwestern pipeline projects.

    Regulatory panels in North Dakota and South Dakota dealt blows to Summit Carbon Solutions’ proposed $5.5 billion, 2,000-mile (3,219-kilometer) interstate pipeline network. The system would carry CO2 emissions from more than 30 ethanol plants in Iowa, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota, to be buried deep underground in central North Dakota.

    North Dakota regulators denied Summit a siting permit, but granted the company’s request for reconsideration. The South Dakota panel denied the company’s permit application, but Summit intends to reapply.

    Iowa regulators this month suspended a weekslong hearing for Summit’s project, set to resume next month. Minnesota regulators are proceeding with an environmental review for a small part of Summit’s project.

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  • Amid a mental health crisis, toy industry takes on a new role: building resilience

    Amid a mental health crisis, toy industry takes on a new role: building resilience

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    NEW YORK — As more children emerge from the pandemic grappling with mental health issues, their parents are seeking ways for them to build emotional resilience.

    And toy companies are paying close attention.

    While still in its early phase, a growing number of toy marketers are embracing MESH — or mental, emotional and social health — as a designation for toys that teach kids skills like how to adjust to new challenges, resolve conflict, advocate for themselves, or solve problems.

    The acronym was first used in child development circles and by the American Camp Association 10 years ago and gained new resonance after the pandemic. Rachele Harmuth, head of ThinkFun, a division of toy company Ravensburger, and resilience expert and family physician Deborah Gilboa, formed a MESH taskforce earlier this year with the goal of getting manufacturers to design toys with emotional resilience in mind and to have retailers market them accordingly.

    “We just need to educate parents and educators just a little bit to know that we could be using their play time a little bit intentionally,” Gilboa said.

    The plan is to certify MESH toys by mid-2024 the same way the Toy Industry Association did for STEAM toys, which emphasize science, tech, engineering, arts, and math. Adrienne Appell, a spokeswoman at the Toy Industry Association, notes that MESH is an area it will continue to monitor as it evolves.

    Many toys that could be considered MESH happen to already be in children’s toy chests — like memory games, puppets, certain types of Legos, Pokémon trading games, and Dungeons & Dragons. The concept was highlighted at the toy industry’s recent four-day annual show in New York, which featured an abundance of toys from the likes of hand2mind and Open the Joy that encourage children to express their feelings with mirrors or puppets.

    James Zahn, editor- in-chief of the trade publication the Toy Book, noted the bulk of the new toys being developed with MESH in mind will be out starting next year.

    But some worry the MESH approach might end up promising parents something it can’t deliver. There’s also a risk of companies preying on parents’ anxieties about their kids’ mental health.

    “My fear is that MESH will be used as the next marketing gimmick,” said Chris Byrne, an independent toy analyst. “It will create a culture of fear that their children are not developing socially and emotionally. And that’s not really the job of the toy industry. ”

    Experts say childhood depression and anxiety were climbing for years, but the pandemic’s unrelenting stress and grief magnified the woes, particularly for those already grappling with mental health issues who were cut off from counselors and other school resources during remote learning. Many educators began emphasizing social emotional learning in response, which teaches children soft skills like helping them manage their emotions and create positive rapport with others.

    Dave Anderson, vice president of school and community programs and a senior psychologist in the ADHD and Behavior Disorders Center at the Child Mind Institute, applauded the toy industry’s efforts to likewise address emotional resilience. But he said parents need to be careful about claims that companies may be making. While there’s evidence that skills highlighted by the MESH taskforce can build resilience, there’s no evidence that the toys themselves will, he said.

    “The concepts are evidence based; the toys themselves are not,” he said.

    Bryne notes that the skills being highlighted by the MESH taskforce are the basics of play, whether it’s skateboarding that builds perseverance or learning how to share toys to help with conflict resolution.

    “In my opinion, if you live in a healthy home and you’re having healthy play and your parents are engaged, the MESH stuff kind of happens automatically, ” he said.

    The U.S. toy industry itself has been in need of a jolt following a weak year, particularly a lackluster holiday 2022 season when retailers were stuck with a surplus of toys after enjoying a pandemic-induced toy splurge by parents. The malaise has continued so far this year, with toy sales in the U.S. down 8% from January through August, based on Circana’s retail tracking service data.

    For its part, the MESH taskforce is initially working with specialty stores like Learning Express and small toy companies like Crazy Aaron’s, which has expanded beyond its Thinking Putty to add activity kits that teach kids problem solving like how magnets work with putty. One game ThinkFun is marketing: Rush Hour, a sliding block logic game that has kids battle traffic gridlock.

    But large retailers like Amazon are also waking up to the MESH approach.

    “The rising popularity of MESH toys speaks to the power of play and the important role that toys play in our lives,” said Anne Carrihill, Amazon’s director of toys and games.

    Richard Derr, owner of the Learning Express franchise in Lake Zurich, Illinois, said that he trained his workers on helping parents this past spring to pick the right toys. But the challenge is not to scare parents.

    “You don’t want to rush up to somebody and say, ‘Hey, how’s your mental health today of your kids?’” Derr said. “That’s why local toy stores are a great place to start because of our relationships with the community, customers and teachers.”

    But he noted toymakers can’t be overusing the word MESH without any meaning.

    Sarah Davis, the mother of three boys ages 3, 6 and 9, is open to the idea of MESH toys. The Great Falls, Virginia resident said her 6-year-old had delayed speech because he was wearing a mask during the heart of the pandemic, while her 9-year-old son has some issues with social interaction after being isolated and glued to his laptop.

    “My kids don’t have an issue with anxiety in terms of school,” she said, but added. ”I still worry about the long-term effects of what that was like.”

    More than the promise of building emotional resilience through MESH is whether the toys themselves will actually be fun.

    “Are my kids going to ask for those kind of toys for Christmas?” Davis asked. “I’m going to be really curious and I will keep an eye out for them.”

    ________

    Follow Anne D’Innocenzio: http://twitter.com/ADInnocenzio

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  • Saudi Arabia, Russia plan to extend 1.3 million barrel a day oil cut through the end of the year

    Saudi Arabia, Russia plan to extend 1.3 million barrel a day oil cut through the end of the year

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    DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — Saudi Arabia and Russia agreed Tuesday to extend their voluntary oil production cuts through the end of this year, trimming 1.3 million barrels of crude out of the global market and boosting energy prices.

    The dual announcements from Riyadh and Moscow pushed benchmark Brent crude above $90 a barrel in trading Tuesday afternoon, a price unseen in the market since last November.

    The countries’ moves likely will increase the cost for motorists filling up at the pump and put new pressure on Saudi Arabia’s relationship with the United States. President Joe Biden last year warned the kingdom there would be unspecified “consequences” for partnering with Russia on cuts as Moscow wages war on Ukraine.

    Saudi Arabia’s announcement, carried by the state-run Saudi Press Agency, said the country still would monitor the market and could take further action if necessary.

    “This additional voluntary cut comes to reinforce the precautionary efforts made by OPEC+ countries with the aim of supporting the stability and balance of oil markets,” the Saudi Press Agency report said, citing an unnamed Energy Ministry official.

    Russian news agency Tass quoted Alexander Novak, Russia’s deputy prime minister and former energy minister, as saying Moscow would continue its 300,000 barrel a day cut.

    The decision “is aimed at strengthening the precautionary measures taken by OPEC+ countries in order to maintain stability and balance of oil markets,” Novak said.

    Benchmark Brent crude traded Tuesday at $90 a barrel immediately after the announcement. Brent had largely hovered between $75 and $85 a barrel since last October.

    The Saudi reduction, which began in July, comes as the other OPEC+ producers have agreed to extend earlier production cuts through next year.

    A series of production cuts over the past year has failed to substantially boost prices amid weakened demand from China and tighter monetary policy aimed at combating inflation.

    The Saudis are particularly keen to boost oil prices in order to fund Vision 2030, an ambitious plan to overhaul the kingdom’s economy, reduce its dependence on oil and to create jobs for a young population.

    The plan includes several massive infrastructure projects, including the construction of a futuristic $500 billion city called Neom.

    Higher prices would also help Russian President Vladimir Putin fund his war on Ukraine. Western countries have used a price cap to try to cut into Moscow’s revenues.

    Western sanctions mean Moscow is forced to sell its oil at a discount to countries like China and India.

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  • American boat patrols waters around new offshore wind farms to protect jobs

    American boat patrols waters around new offshore wind farms to protect jobs

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    NEW BEDFORD, Massachusetts — One early morning this week in ocean waters off the coasts of Rhode Island and New York, signs of the nascent wind industry were all around. Giant upright steel tubes poked from the water, waiting for ships to hoist up turbines that will make electricity driven by wind.

    A battleship-gray vessel was on the prowl. In this ramp-up for U.S. offshore wind, American marine companies and mariners fear they’ll be left behind. So Aaron Smith, president of the Offshore Marine Service Association, was looking through binoculars to see whether ships servicing the new wind farms were using foreign-flagged vessels instead of U.S.-made ships with American crews.

    “It really makes me upset when I think about the men and women I know who can do this work. American citizens, fully capable, sitting at home while foreign nationals go to work in U.S. waters,” Smith said. “It’s unfair.”

    The ship is named the Jones Act Enforcer, after the century-old law that says the transport of merchandise between U.S. points is reserved for U.S.-built, owned and documented vessels. The motto: “We’ll be watching.” Smith was documenting operations to show to federal law enforcement officials and members of Congress.

    The Offshore Marine Service Association says it strongly supports the offshore wind industry. Many of its member companies are already working in it. Smith said this effort is about securing their future — decades of jobs and investments. The U.S. could need roughly 2,000 of the most powerful turbines to meet its goals to ramp up offshore wind to dramatically cut its use of fossil fuels to protect the atmosphere and reduce climate change.

    The Enforcer made several trips to where Danish energy company Ørsted is developing the South Fork Wind project with the utility Eversource. This will likely be the first U.S. commercial-scale wind farm to open.

    Approaching the site Tuesday, Smith saw a large crane ship sailing under the Cyprus flag, smaller Belgian-flagged vessels, and U.S. fishing and offshore supply vessels near the turbine bases. The Associated Press was the only media outlet aboard.

    The U.S. fleet doesn’t yet have massive ships specialized for offshore wind to install foundations and turbines. But some of the foreign-flagged vessels working in wind development areas along the East Coast are tugs and smaller supply ships. U.S. ship operators told the AP they have similar vessels that can do this work.

    Ørsted responded that 75% of the vessels supporting South Fork Wind’s offshore construction are U.S.-flagged, including barges, tugs, crew transport vessels and fishing vessels that monitor for safety and marine mammals. But the larger U.S.-flagged offshore wind vessels aren’t built yet. Even so, the installation vessels for South Fork Wind have American union workers on board, the company told the AP.

    “While the U.S. industry continues to mature, we’re designing our projects to tap as many American workers, contractors, suppliers and vessels as possible. We’re proud that South Fork Wind is putting hundreds of American mariners and union workers to work at sea in a wide range of roles,” Bryan Stockton, head of regulatory affairs for Ørsted, said in a statement Thursday.

    Ørsted’s offshore work is complying with Jones Act provisions, Stockton added.

    On this day, Smith said he could see no clear violations of the Jones Act, no “smoking gun.” In order to make a Jones Act case to Customs and Border Protection, the association would need to see several stages of activity, observing a ship for weeks if not months. It would need to show loading merchandise onto a ship in port, transporting it to an offshore site and returning empty.

    In the past, the association has also checked oil and gas sites for foreign vessels. It first chartered the Enforcer from Harvey Gulf International Marine in late 2021.

    Both wind and oil and gas companies can seek waivers to the Jones Act, citing national defense and unavailability of U.S. vessels, or get a ruling from Customs that a specific transaction is permitted using a foreign vessel.

    But Smith said he feels that offshore wind developers are violating the spirit of the act. He said he worries investors won’t finance the building of offshore ships if they’re going to compete against foreign vessels with cheaper day rates, largely because foreign crews can be paid less. That would create a cycle where developers keep using foreign vessels because no U.S. vessels are available.

    The association wants to break that cycle as the industry takes off, Smith said. Federal officials expect to review at least 16 construction and operations plans for commercial, offshore wind energy facilities by 2025.

    “That’s a ton of work we could be doing,” Smith said, “and a ton of good-paying jobs.”

    Randy Adams owns Sea Support Ventures in Cut Off, Louisiana. His vessels do geological surveys for oil and gas. He wants to do the same for the clean energy transition, but hasn’t yet.

    “I’m just concerned that our industry is going to miss the boat on the wind farm work,” he said. “I can’t say we’re being shut out of it, but we’re sure not on the top of the totem pole.”

    As for the Jones Act Enforcer, Smith plans to keep it berthed at the port of New Bedford, Massachusetts into August, visiting the two commercial-scale wind farm sites. Ørsted is installing 12 turbines. The other developer, Vineyard Wind, is building a 62-turbine wind farm 15 miles (24 kilometers) off the Massachusetts coast.

    Vineyard Wind said in a statement Thursday that its project complies with all U.S. laws, including the Jones Act, and it fully supports the American maritime and shipbuilding industry.

    Before arriving in Massachusetts, the Enforcer was off the coast of Virginia where Dominion Energy plans an offshore wind farm. Smith was seeing if foreign vessels were surveying the area for unexploded ordnance, and he said they were, despite at least four of his member companies bidding on the job.

    Dominion told the AP those vessels are not transporting merchandise between U.S. points, so they’re compliant. The company said U.S. vessels got the work surveying, scouting, hauling equipment and transporting technicians.

    In Texas, Dominion is also currently building the Charybdis, the first Jones Act-compliant offshore wind-installation vessel and says it strongly supports the Act. Ørsted will charter that ship.

    Ørsted is also investing in the Eco Edison, the first American-made offshore wind service operations vessel, now under construction in Louisiana, and in five more crew transfer vessels being built in Rhode Island.

    Sam Giberga is executive vice president and general counsel at Hornbeck Offshore Services in Covington, Louisiana. Its supply vessels and multi-purpose support ships are primarily used by the oil and gas industry in the Gulf of Mexico. He said at first they were excited by the promise of offshore wind because it’s clean energy that will create jobs and business. But for him, it’s starting to feel like a broken promise. The company recently lost a bid to a foreign vessel.

    “We are a maritime nation. Always have been. This is the next great maritime frontier and we’re not going to get to do it,” Giberga asked. “Why would we allow that?” ___

    Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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  • Hollywood actors agree to mediation, but strike may be unavoidable

    Hollywood actors agree to mediation, but strike may be unavoidable

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    LOS ANGELES (AP) — Unionized Hollywood actors on the verge of a strike have agreed to allow a last-minute intervention from federal mediators but say they doubt a deal will be reached by a negotiation deadline late Wednesday.

    “We are committed to the negotiating process and will explore and exhaust every possible opportunity to make a deal, however we are not confident that the employers have any intention of bargaining toward an agreement,” the Screen Actors Guild -American Federation of Radio and Television Artists said in a statement Tuesday night.

    The actors could join the already striking Writers Guild of America and grind the already slowed production process to a halt if no agreement is reached with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers. The sides agreed to an extension before the original contract expiration date on June 30, resetting it to Wednesday at 11:59 p.m.

    Theatergoers in select cities will soon be able to watch “20 Days in Mariupol,” the visceral documentary on Russia’s early assault on the Ukrainian city.

    This image released by Universal Pictures shows Cillian Murphy as Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer in a scene from "Oppenheimer," left, and physicist Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer on the test ground for the atomic bomb near Alamogordo, N.M., on Sept. 9, 1945. (Universal Pictures via AP, left, and AP Photo)

    The day Christopher Nolan called Cillian Murphy about his new film, “Oppenheimer,” Murphy hung up the phone in disbelief.

    This image released by Universal Pictures shows Benny Safdie as Edward Teller, left, and Cillian Murphy as J. Robert Oppenheimer in a scene from "Oppenheimer." (Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures via AP)

    Christopher Nolan has never been one to take the easy or straightforward route while making a movie.

    This image released by Netflix shows, from left, Gonzalo de Castro, Georgina Campbell, Mario Casas and Naila Schuberth in a scene from "Bird Box: Barcelona." (Andrea Resmini/Netflix via AP)

    Netflix tries to capitalize on the popularity of its 2018 film “Bird Box” with “Bird Box Barcelona,” set in the Spanish city around the same time, with a new cast that does not include Sandra Bullock.

    Issues on the table in negotiations include the unregulated use of artificial intelligence and effects on residual pay brought on by the streaming ecosystem that has emerged in recent years.

    “People are standing up and saying this doesn’t really work, and people need to be paid fairly,” Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain, who was nominated for her first Emmy Award Wednesday for playing Tammy Wynette in “George & Tammy,” told The Associated Press. “It is very clear that there are certain streamers that have really kind of changed the way we work and the way that we have worked, and the contracts really haven’t caught up to the innovation that’s happened.”

    Growing pessimism surrounding the talks seemed to turn to open hostility when SAG-AFTRA released a statement Tuesday night.

    It came in response to a report in Variety that a group of Hollywood CEOs had been the force behind the request for mediation, which the union said was leaked before its negotiators were informed of the request.

    The AMPTP declined comment through a representative. It’s not clear whether federal mediators have agreed to take part, but such an intervention would presumably require more time than the hours left on the contract.

    “The AMPTP has abused our trust and damaged the respect we have for them in this process,” the SAG-AFTRA statement said. “We will not be manipulated by this cynical ploy to engineer an extension when the companies have had more than enough time to make a fair deal.”

    ___

    AP National Writer Jocelyn Noveck contributed to this report.

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  • Florida’s new DeSantis-backed laws address immigration, guns and more

    Florida’s new DeSantis-backed laws address immigration, guns and more

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    TALLAHASSEE, Fla. (AP) — Employers who hire immigrants in the country illegally will face tough punishments and gun owners will have more freedoms when more than 200 new Florida laws take effect Saturday, many of which Gov. Ron DeSantis will highlight as he seeks the Republican presidential nomination.

    DeSantis has taken a hard line on illegal immigration as he campaigns, saying he’ll finish the Mexican border wall his one-time supporter, Donald Trump, promised to build. He’s also carried out political gimmicks like flying immigrants from Texas to blue states, supposedly before they can get to Florida.

    The new employer penalties are a chance for DeSantis to show he doesn’t just talk tough on illegal immigration, but he’s put in place what some critics say the harshest state law in the country. DeSantis has largely echoed the border policy of Trump, whose endorsement propelled DeSantis to the governor’s office in 2018. DeSantis is now the former president’s leading competitor for the White House.

    Partying never gets old in the Florida Keys — especially for a milestone birthday like No. 200. The Florida Keys celebrated its bicentennial Monday along the Gulf of Mexico with a Key lime pie more than 13 feet (4 meters) in diameter — which organizers intend to certify as a world record.

    FILE - Advocates gather for a rally at the state Capitol complex in Nashville, Tenn., to oppose a series of bills that target the LGBTQ community, Tuesday, Feb. 14, 2023. Bans on gender-affirming care for minors are to take effect Saturday in Georgia and Tennessee. (AP Photo/Jonathan Mattise, File)

    New state laws are tackling some of the most divisive issues in the U.S., including abortion, gender and guns.

    Former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School School Resource Officer Scot Peterson reacts as he is found not guilty on all charges at the Broward County Courthouse in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., on Thursday, June 29, 2023. Peterson was acquitted of child neglect and other charges for failing to act during the Parkland school massacre, where 14 students and three staff members were murdered. (Amy Beth Bennett/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP, Pool)

    Attorneys say the acquittal of a Florida deputy for failing to act during a school shooting shows there are holes in the law.

    Republican presidential candidate Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks at the Moms for Liberty meeting in Philadelphia, Friday, June 30, 2023. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

    The two leading contenders for the Republican presidential nomination have courted conservative women at the Moms for Liberty conference in Philadelphia .

    The new law expands worker verification requirements, among other provisions. The governor’s office blames the Biden administration for what it says is a crisis at the southern border.

    “Any business that exploits this crisis by employing illegal aliens instead of Floridians will be held accountable,” said DeSantis spokesman Jeremy Redfern.

    But in a state where the largest industries — tourism, agriculture and construction — rely heavily on immigrant labor, there are concerns that the economy could be disrupted when employers are already having a hard time filling open jobs. Florida’s unemployment rate is 2.6%.

    Samuel Vilchez Santiago, the American Business Immigration Coalition’s Florida director, said there are 400,000 “undocumented immigrants” working in the state and far fewer applicants than jobs.

    “We are in dire need of workers,” especially in construction, the service industry and agriculture, he said. “So there is a lot of fear from across the state … that this new law will actually be devastating.”

    The law forces any company with 25 or more employees to use E-Verify to document new hires’ eligibility to work or face a loss of business license or fines of $1,000 per day per employee.

    The law also forces hospitals that accept Medicaid to ask patients if they are citizens or legally in the United States and voids drivers licenses issued by other states to people in the country illegally.

    Protesters have rallied around the state. Dozens of people on Friday waved signs and Mexican, Cuban and American flags in front of the historic Capitol. Rubith Sandoval, 15, helped organize the protest. Her family moved from Mexico and now owns a farm in Quincy.

    “We work hard in the fields. We pick tomatoes, we pick strawberries, we pick watermelons, oranges, and who’s going to do that now?” Sandoval said. “My parents now have documents, but they still haven’t forgotten how it was not to have documents.”

    Republicans have a supermajority in the House and Senate, and only one Republican opposed the legislation. Given DeSantis’ power and reputation for being vengeful, there has been little vocal opposition among GOP elected officials about the new immigration policy. But that doesn’t mean all Republicans are supporting it, either

    Independently-elected Agriculture Commissioner Wilton Simpson, a Republican, said illegal immigration is a federal problem.

    “Our state solutions are limited, not particularly effective, and have unintended consequences,” Simpson said in an email. “I think the Legislature’s work to tackle illegal immigration is necessary, whether or not it is effective is yet to be seen.”

    DeSantis will also be able to tout expanded gun rights under a new law that allows anyone legally able to own a gun to carry it concealed in public without a permit. While concealed weapons permits will still be issued, those choosing to carry without one won’t be subject to a background check or training.

    The law doesn’t ease background checks on gun sales that already require one. Another new law prohibits credit card companies from tracking gun and ammunition sales to prevent them potentially using the data to flag people who make large purchases.

    Florida has also banned colleges from using state or federal funding for diversity, equity and inclusion programs, a consistent DeSantis target, and schools will be prohibited from requiring teachers and students to use pronouns that match someone’s gender identity.

    Beginning Saturday, Chinese nationals will be banned from purchasing property in large swaths of the state. A new law applies to properties within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of military installations and other “critical infrastructure” and also affects citizens of Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, Iran, Russia, and North Korea. But Chinese citizens and those selling property to them face the harshest penalties.

    The American Civil Liberties Union is suing in federal court to stop the law, but a judge won’t consider an injunction until nearly three weeks after it takes effect. The U.S. Department of Justice provided a brief to the court saying it believes the law is unconstitutional.

    “DOJ has weighed in because Florida’s law is blatantly unconstitutional and violates the Fair Housing Act. Their brief underscores just how egregious” the law is, ACLU lawyer Ashley Gorski said in an emailed statement.

    DeSantis defended the law using his campaign Twitter account, saying President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland are siding with the Chinese Communist Party.

    “I side with the American people,” the tweet said. “As governor, I prohibited CCP-tied entities from buying land in Florida. As president, I’ll do the same.”

    One new law Democrats and Republicans agreed unanimously on is a sales tax exemption on baby and toddler products, including diapers, strollers, cribs and clothing. The tax package also includes exemptions for dental hygiene products and gun safety devices, such as trigger locks.

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  • Theme parks bounced back in 2022 from pandemic lows with revenue, if not attendance

    Theme parks bounced back in 2022 from pandemic lows with revenue, if not attendance

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    Last year marked a return to normal for the theme park industry around the world with operators reporting revenues at par or above pre-pandemic levels

    FILE – In this Jan. 22, 2015 file photo, visitors walk toward the Sleeping Beauty’s Castle in the background at Disneyland Resprt in Anaheim, Calif. Last year, 2022, marked a return to normal for the theme park industry around the world with operators reporting revenues, and sometimes attendance, at par or above pre-pandemic levels, according to a new report. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)

    The Associated Press

    ORLANDO, Fla. — Last year marked a return to normal for the theme park industry around the world with operators reporting revenues, and in some cases attendance, at par or above pre-pandemic levels, according to a new report.

    Globally, the theme park industry hit a peak in 2019, the year before the spread of the COVID-19 virus forced many parks and attractions to shut down temporarily and then reopen with restrictions on attendance.

    Many operators focused on improving visitor experiences through adapting app-based technologies and that paid off with revenues in 2022 that surpassed 2019 levels, even if attendance had not bounced back in the same way, according to the report released Wednesday by the Themed Entertainment Association and AECOM, the design and engineering firm.

    “The pandemic revealed a sophisticated consumer base that is willing to pay more for out of home entertainment and experiences. However, consumers also demand more in terms of comfort, ease, quality, and satisfaction,” the report said. “Overall tolerance for big crowds and long waits seems to have gone down.”

    The theme parks also found ways to add days for lucrative special events that attracted local visitors such as Halloween celebrations at Universal, Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks. In Orlando, Florida, the theme park capital of the U.S., attendance was driven by domestic visitors rather than international travelers, a segment that was hurt by travel restrictions during the height of the pandemic response. The new Super Nintendo World buoyed attendance for Universal Studios Japan, the report said.

    The Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World outside Orlando was the most visited park last year with more than 17.1 million guests, an increase by more than a third over 2021 numbers but still down from the 20.9 million visitors in 2019.

    Rounding out the top 5 most attended theme parks were: Disneyland in Anaheim, California, which had 16.8 million visitors, almost double the attendance in 2021 but still below the 18.6 million visitors in 2019; Tokyo Disneyland with 12 million visitors, close to double the numbers from the previous year but still only about two-thirds of 2019’s attendance; Tokyo DisneySea with 10,1 million visitors, a three-quarters jump from 2021 but still down two-thirds from 2019; and Universal Studios Japan with 12.3 million visitors, which was more than doubled the attendance from 2021 but still lagging the 14.5 million visitors in 2019.

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  • China struggles with weak post-COVID economic recovery

    China struggles with weak post-COVID economic recovery

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    SHIYAN, China — Sales of Yizhuan Automobile Co.’s trash trucks picked up after China ended anti-virus controls in December, but their growth is in low gear as managers struggle to rebuild business lost during the pandemic.

    China’s economy rebounded at the start of 2023, but after a good first quarter, factory output and consumer spending are weakening. An official survey in April found a record 1 in 5 young workers in cities were unemployed.

    Yizhuan’s sales are up only by single-digit percentages from last year’s depressed level, according to its deputy general manager, Yu Xiongli. The 300-employee company is in Hubei province, where the first coronavirus cases were detected in late 2019.

    ″It is still in the process of recovering,” Yu said. “Growth is quite slow.”

    China’s economic growth accelerated to 4.5% over a year earlier in the three months ending in March from the previous quarter’s 2.9%, but forecasters say the peak of that recovery might already be past.

    Growth would need to pick up further to reach the ruling Communist Party’s target of “around 5%” for the year.

    “For now, the ongoing momentum seems not that promising,” said UBS economist Zhang Ning.

    The economy needs a “domestic demand rebound” with government support to boost confidence for businesses and consumers, Zhang said.

    The end of restrictions that isolated cities for weeks at a time and blocked most international travel prompted hopes for a consumer boom. But retail sales are weak. Shoppers are uneasy about the economic outlook and possible job losses and are reluctant to commit to big purchases.

    Retail sales in April surged 18.4% over last year’s lackluster level, but that was barely half the growth of up to 35% called for by private sector forecasts. Factory output fell 0.5% compared with March and investment growth slowed.

    “I have misgivings about spending money,” said Xue Liang, who works in information technology in Beijing. ”COVID-19 and changes in the international situation have made us worry a lot.”

    Manufacturing contracted faster in May, according to a survey by the national statistics agency and an industry group. New orders and export orders declined.

    Exports in May tumbled 7.5% from a year ago after global consumer demand was depressed by interest rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and central banks in Europe and Asia to cool inflation. Exports to the United States plunged 18.2%.

    That is a challenge for automakers and other manufacturers that are trying to make up for weak demand at home by selling more abroad.

    Tenglong Automobile Co., which makes electric buses in the southwestern city of Xiangyang, sent salespeople to Russia, South Korea and Southeast Asia as soon as travel controls ended to try to revive orders after a three-year gap.

    “Last year, our foreign customers basically didn’t come,” said Tenglong’s deputy general manager, Zhou Shengming. “But this year, we already have had several batches. In May, we had three.”

    Yizhuan in Shiyan, which also sells sanitation, cargo and dump trucks to city governments and construction companies, says it exports vehicles worth about $20 million a year to Russia and Southeast Asia.

    Li Yichun, who runs a bodyguard business in Beijing, said his customers are less willing to spend.

    “It can be seen from my business that the economy is not recovering very well,” Li said. “A lot of clients who are bosses are not intending to spend on hiring as they did before.”

    ___

    AP video producer Wayne Zhang contributed.

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  • Stock market today: Asian stocks mixed after Wall St retreats on concern economy weakening

    Stock market today: Asian stocks mixed after Wall St retreats on concern economy weakening

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    BEIJING — Asian stock markets were mixed Tuesday after Wall Street fell on concern the U.S. economy may be weakening following a report that showed growth in service industries slowing.

    Tokyo and Hong Kong rose while Shanghai and Sydney declined. Oil prices retreated.

    Wall Street’s benchmark S&P 500 index lost 0.2% on Monday after an industry group’s index of activity in construction, hospitality and other services fell to a three-year low in May. That conflicted with hopes raised by data last week that showed unexpectedly strong hiring in May, suggesting a potential U.S. recession brought on by interest rate hikes might be farther away.

    “Weakness is emerging and that should be more noticeable in the coming months,” Edward Moya of Oanda said in a report.

    Australia’s central bank lifted its benchmark interest rate Tuesday for a 12th consecutive time to 4.1% and warned further rises could follow. The Reserve Bank of Australia boosted the cash rate by a quarter of a percentage point following a higher-than-expected 6.8% annual inflation rate for the January-March quarter.

    The S&P ASX 200 in Sydney shed 0.9% to 7,149.00.

    The Shanghai Composite Index lost 0.3% to 3,222.35 while the Hang Seng in Hong Kong advanced 0.6% to 19,220.23.

    The Nikkei 225 in Tokyo gained 0.7% to 32,454.78 after government data showed Japanese wages rose 1% over a year earlier in April but growth slowed from the previous month’s 1.3%.

    India’s Sensex opened down 0.3% at 62,599.57.

    New Zealand and Singapore declined while Bangkok and Jakarta advanced. South Korean markets were closed for a holiday.

    On Wall Street, the S&P 500 declined to 4,273.79 after the Institute for Supply Management reported its service industry index declined to 50.3 from April’s 51.9 on a 100-point scale on which numbers above 50 show activity increasing.

    The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 0.6% to 33,562.86. The Nasdaq composite slipped 11.34, or 0.1%, to 13,229.43.

    The majority of stocks sank after a weekslong rally carried Wall Street to an 10-month high.

    Apple fell 0.8% after unveiling a long-rumored headset that will place its users between the virtual and real world. It will cost $3,500 when it is released early next year.

    Traders are worried rate hikes by the Federal Reserve and central banks in Europe and Asia to cool inflation that was at multidecade highs will push the global economy into a recession. They hope signs of slowing U.S. activity will prompt the Fed to postpone or scale back a possible additional rate increase at its meeting this month.

    The U.S. government is due to release an update on inflation next week ahead of the Fed meeting.

    Even if the Fed puts off a rate hike this month, Wall Street is betting on another increase in July after officials examine more data.

    High interest rates led to three high-profile U.S. bank failures and one in Switzerland that rattled financial markets. Manufacturing also has been weakening.

    Last week’s data showed that U.S. employers unexpectedly accelerated hiring in May, while increases in workers’ wages diminished.

    That helped propel Wall Street to the brink of a “bull market,” or an increase of 20% in the S&P 500 over its mid-October low.

    In energy markets, benchmark U.S. crude lost 36 cents to $71.79 per barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract rose 41 cents to $72.15 on Monday. Brent crude, the price basis for international oil trading, sank 34 cents to $76.37 per barrel in London. It advanced 58 cents the previous session to $76.71.

    The dollar fell to 139.45 yen from Monday’s 139.63 yen. The euro gained to $1.0729 from $1.0715.

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  • US employers added a surprisingly strong 339,000 jobs in May in a sign of economic health

    US employers added a surprisingly strong 339,000 jobs in May in a sign of economic health

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    WASHINGTON — The nation’s employers stepped up their hiring in May, adding a robust 339,000 jobs, well above expectations and evidence of enduring strength in an economy that the Federal Reserve is desperately trying to cool.

    Friday’s report from the government reflected the job market’s resilience after more than a year of rapid interest rate increases by the Fed. Many industries, from construction to restaurants to health care, are still adding jobs to keep up with consumer demand and restore their workforces to pre-pandemic levels.

    Yet there were some mixed messages in the jobs figures, which also showed that the unemployment rate rose to 3.7%, from a five-decade low of 3.4% in April. The government compiles the unemployment data with a different survey than the one used to calculate job gains. The two surveys can sometimes conflict.

    The length of the average work week also declined, and wage growth cooled, resulting in a jobs report that economists said painted an unusually complicated picture of the employment market. Still, the overall picture was an encouraging one.

    “Job growth remain robust in what is undeniably a historically tight labor market,” said Joe Brusuelas, chief economist at consulting firm RSM. “As long as the economy continues to produce above 200,000 jobs per month this economy simply is not going to slip into recession.”

    In Friday’s report, the government sharply revised up its estimate of job growth in March and April by an additional 93,000 jobs, underscoring the labor market’s durability.

    Average hourly pay rose 11 cents to $33.44, up 4.3% from a year ago. Wages continue to grow faster than the 3% annual pace before the pandemic but are down from a nearly 6% rate last year.

    Even with the huge job gain, the slowdown in wages and shorter work week are likely enough to keep the Fed from raising its key interest rate at its next meeting later this month, economists said. Having imposed 10 straight rate hikes since March 2022, the Fed is widely expected to skip a rate increase when it meets later this month, though it may resume its increases after that.

    Last months’ increase in the unemployment rate partly reflected higher layoffs, suggesting that not all those who lost jobs in recent cuts by tech companies, banks and media companies have found new work.

    The hiring data, though, is typically considered more reliable over time because it is based on a larger survey of companies. The unemployment rate is derived from a smaller survey of households.

    Drew Matus, chief economist at MetLife Investment Management, cautioned that underneath the big headline job gain, there were signs that companies were turning more cautious about hiring. He noted that joblessness rose last month for teenagers, the disabled and people with less education. That was a sign that companies were cutting workers with fewer skills and less experience.

    “Before it was a rising tide lifts all boats, and now it seems like the boats have gotten smaller and firms are deciding who gets to sit in them,” Matus said.

    In May, construction companies added 25,000 jobs, mostly in commercial construction and engineering. Health care providers gained 75,000 jobs. And in professional and business services, a category that includes white-collar jobs such as accountants, engineers, and architects, 64,000 positions were added.

    Chair Jerome Powell and other Fed officials have made clear that they regard strong hiring as likely to keep inflation persistently high because employers tend to raise pay in a tight job market. Many of these companies then pass on their higher wage costs to customers in the form of higher prices.

    The May jobs report adds to other recent evidence that the economy is still managing to chug ahead despite long-standing predictions that a recession was near. Consumers ramped up their spending in April, even after adjusting for inflation, and sales of new homes rose despite higher mortgage rates.

    Some cracks in the economy’s foundations, though, have begun to emerge. Home sales have tumbled. A measure of factory activity indicated that it has contracted for seven straight months.

    And consumers are showing signs of straining to keep up with higher prices. The proportion of Americans who are struggling to stay current on their credit card and auto loan debt rose in the first three months of this year, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

    Fed officials are expected to forgo a rate increase at their June 13-14 meeting to allow time to assess how their previous rate hikes have affected the inflation pressures underlying the economy. Higher rates typically take time to affect growth and hiring. The Fed wants to avoid raising its key rate to the point where it would slow borrowing and spending so much as to cause a deep recession.

    The U.S. economy as a whole has been gradually weakening. It grew at a lackluster 1.3% annual rate from January through March, after 2.6% annual growth from October through December and 3.2% from July through September.

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  • Consultants: Design issues, operations lapses led to big Kansas oil spill

    Consultants: Design issues, operations lapses led to big Kansas oil spill

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    TOPEKA, Kan. — Pipeline design issues, lapses by its operators and problems caused during its construction led to a massive oil spill on the Keystone pipeline system in northeastern Kansas, according to a report for U.S. government regulators.

    An engineering consulting firm said in the report that the bend in the Keystone system where the December 2022 spill occurred had been “overstressed” since its installation in December 2010 — likely because construction activity itself altered the land around the pipe. The U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipelines and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration posted a redacted copy of the report online Monday, about three weeks after it was completed by RSI Pipeline Solutions, based in the Columbus, Ohio, area.

    The report raised questions about Canada-based TC Energy’s oversight of the manufacturing of its pipeline, saying the report’s authors could find no record of a pre-installation inspection of the welds on the pipeline bend in Washington County, Kansas. The report concluded that TC Energy underestimated the risks associated with the bend going from its round shape when installed to a more-restricted oval shape within two years and didn’t replace the bend after excavating it in 2013.

    The company said in February that a faulty weld in the bend caused a crack that grew over time under stress. The spill dumped nearly 13,000 barrels of crude oil — each one enough to fill a standard household bathtub — into a creek running through a rural pasture about 150 miles (240 kilometers) northwest of Kansas City. It was the largest onshore spill in nearly nine years.

    “When you have a pipeline that is spilling and having as many problems as Keystone One, it is clearly a red flag that there are bigger issues going on,” said Jane Kleeb, who founded the Bold Nebraska environmental and landowner rights group that helped fight off TC Energy’s plan to build a second pipeline, the Keystone XL.

    The U.S. Department of Transportation has documented 22 leaks along the Keystone pipeline since it was built in 2010. The one in Washington County was by far the largest.

    “At what point, does the federal government … step in and say this has reached a point where we need to shut the full line down to do a full review of the pipeline?” Kleeb said.

    The 2,700-mile (4,345-kilometer) Keystone system carries heavy crude oil extracted in western Canada to the Gulf Coast and to central Illinois. Concerns that spills could pollute waterways ultimately scuttled TC Energy’s plans to build the Keystone XL across 1,200 miles (1,900 kilometers) of Montana, South Dakota and Nebraska.

    In Kansas, no one was evacuated because of the December spill. State and U.S. government officials have said it didn’t affect two rivers and a lake downstream from the creek.

    In response to a request Tuesday for comment, TC Energy pointed to a statement it issued when the report was finished in April but not public. In it, Richard Prior, president of TC Energy’s Liquids Pipeline operations, said the company was confident in the pipeline’s reliability.

    TC Energy has said the cleanup will cost the company $480 million, and it announced last week that it had finished recovering oil from the creek.

    Prior said last month: “We are unwavering in our commitment to fully remediate the site.”

    But Bill Caram, executive director of the Pipeline Safety Trust watchdog group, said that with the history of problems along the Keystone pipeline, the public has plenty of reasons to doubt its safety.

    “I would certainly like to see PHMSA come up with a plan to work with TC Energy to develop a plan so that the public can be ensured that TC Energy will be able to operate this pipeline safely going forward. I don’t think the public has that kind of trust in this pipeline right now,” Caram said.

    Richard Kuprewicz, who has five decades of experience in the pipeline industry and consults with governments about them, said problems like this flawed weld need to be found during construction but TC Energy clearly missed it amid the pressure to get the multibillion-dollar project built quickly.

    “It looks like the quality control got out of hand at least in this segment. I can’t say for the whole line,” said Kuprewicz, who is president of Washington-based Accufacts Inc.

    The consultants’ report said the pipeline rupture and oil spill occurred only days after TC Energy began testing for increasing the pressure in the Keystone system, though the Kansas section was operating about 16% below the top pressure allowed by U.S. government regulators. At the same time, the company was running a device through the pipeline to look for potential leaks.

    Pipeline valves were left open so that the leak-testing tool could pass through the pipeline, the report said, and that could have contributed to the size of the spill.

    The report said a March 2021 engineering assessment of Keystone’s pipeline from southern Nebraska to northern Oklahoma showed five bends, including Washington County’s, had the same oval “deformation.”

    The report noted that the industry generally does not see so-called “ovalities” as a threat, so the “obvious” focus in Washington County in 2012 and 2013 when that abnormality was found there was ensuring that a leak-detecting tool still could pass through the bend.

    “Yet this focus may have caused the Pipe Integrity team and senior management to overlook a potential concern of added stress on the elbow and its possible impact on future integrity,” the report said.

    The report added that 108 other pipe fittings manufactured for the Keystone system in 2010 could have “imperfections” similar to those in the Washington County bend. All of them were replacements for other fittings found to be deficient.

    Because other bends made on the same day had weld flaws that were repaired, the report found it “plausible” that the Washington County bend also had flaws “repaired but not recorded.”

    The lack of an inspection report means that, at a minimum, record-keeping procedures were not followed and, at worst, the report said, “The weld inspections were never performed.”

    ___

    Funk reported from Omaha, Nebraska.

    ___

    Follow John Hanna on Twitter: https://twitter.com/apjdhanna

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  • Stock market today: Asia shares mixed on holiday mode trade

    Stock market today: Asia shares mixed on holiday mode trade

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    TOKYO — Asian shares were mixed Tuesday with some markets closed or anticipating holidays and investors showing muted reaction to the latest U.S. banking failure.

    Australia’s S&P/ASX 200 dipped 1.1% to 7,254.40, after the Reserve Bank of Australia raised interest rates by a quarter-percentage point, an unexpected move that signaled further tightening might be ahead. South Korea’s Kospi gained 0.6% to 2,515.24. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng gained 0.5% to 19,986.86.

    Japan’s Nikkei 225 edged up 0.1% in afternoon trading to 29,162.85. Trading in Tokyo will be closed for Golden Week holidays the rest of the week. Trading was closed in Shanghai for Labor Day.

    Economic and inflation reports are expected in Europe ahead of the central bank meeting later in the week. Markets are also bracing for what is hoped to be the last interest rate hike by the U.S. Federal Reserve for some time. Oil prices and currencies were little changed.

    Recent China’s manufacturing data showed a contraction, reflecting how the weakening export market is starting to hurt the domestic economy, according to analysts.

    “We believe that the government will resume subsidies on electric vehicles, which would benefit both the manufacturing and services sector. The government might also push infrastructure construction faster,” said Robert Carnell and other analysts at ING in their report.

    On Wall Street, the S&P 500 was virtually unchanged after regulators seized First Republic Bank and sold off most of it in hopes of preventing more turmoil in the industry. It dipped 1.61, or less than 0.1%, to 4,167.87. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 46.46, or 0.1%, to 34,051.70, and the Nasdaq composite fell 13.99, or 0.1%, to 12,212.60.

    First Republic has been feared as the next to topple following March’s failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank. That fueled a larger worry that runs on smaller and midsized banks could take down the economy, like the financial industry’s woes did in 2008.

    But analysts and economists see big differences between then and now. The biggest U.S. banks are feeling less pressure, and several banks under scrutiny have said their deposit levels have strengthened since late March. And the stock market’s reaction indicates investors see First Republic Bank, which plunged 75% last week, as an isolated rather than systemic problem.

    Shares of JPMorgan Chase, which is buying much of First Republic’s assets, rose 2.1%. It’s becoming even bigger following the deal.

    Still, many other questions continue to hang over Wall Street that could shake things up. They include worries about corporate profits and the U.S. government’s latest squabble over the country’s debt limit.

    Above all is what the Federal Reserve will do with interest rates. At its next meeting, which concludes Wednesday, most traders expect the Fed to raise short-term rate by another quarter of a percentage point, up to a range of 5 to 5.25% from virtually zero early last year.

    The hope is that may be the final increase for a while, which would give the economy and financial markets more breathing room.

    The Fed has been raising rates sharply in hopes of getting high inflation under control. But high rates are a notoriously blunt tool that slow the entire economy, raise the risk of a recession and hurt prices for investments.

    If banks limit their lending following their industry’s recent struggles, even if there are no more failures, that could act like rate increases on their own. Many investors are preparing for a recession to hit later this year.

    A report on Monday from the Institute for Supply Management said manufacturing activity shrank again in April, though not as badly as most economists expected. Other reports this week will give the latest updates on U.S. services industries and hiring across the economy.

    One lever that’s propped up Wall Street in recent weeks has been a stream of companies reporting better profits for the first three months of the year than expected.

    Through last week, with just over half of S&P 500 companies reporting, nearly four in five had reported higher earnings than forecast, according to FactSet. That has companies in the index on track to report a drop of 3.7% from a year earlier.

    That would mark a second straight quarter of falling earnings, something that Wall Street calls a profit recession. But it would not be as bad as the 6.7% drop that analysts forecasted a month ago.

    In the bond market, Treasury yields rose as expectations firmed on Wall Street for at least one more rate hike. The yield on the 10-year Treasury rose to 3.58% from 3.43% late Friday. It helps set rates for mortgages and other important loans.

    The yield on the two-year Treasury, which moves more on expectations for Fed action, rose to 4.13% from 4.02%.

    In energy trading, benchmark U.S. crude inched down 1 cent to $75.65 a barrel. Brent crude, the international standard, fell 3 cents to $79.28 a barrel.

    In currency trading, the U.S. dollar inched up to 137.70 Japanese yen from 137.47 yen. The euro stood at $1.0991, up slightly from $1.0978.

    ___

    AP Business Writer Stan Choe contributed.

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  • Microchips or microgreens? Oregon tweaks farm protection law

    Microchips or microgreens? Oregon tweaks farm protection law

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    SALEM, Ore. — Oregon is changing a half-century-old land-use law to make room for semiconductor development and gain an edge in attracting the multi-billion-dollar industry, upsetting farmers who see their livelihoods at risk.

    Lawmakers backing a bill that also provides about $200 million in grants to chipmakers said it’s needed to make Oregon more competitive in luring more of the multibillion-dollar semiconductor industry to the state. Other lawmakers argued that the measure is an attack on the nation’s first statewide policy — created a half-century ago — that limits urban sprawl and protects farmland and forests.

    “These regulations have resulted in 50 years of success protecting our farm and forest lands, containing urban sprawl, and protecting natural resources,” said Republican state Rep. Anna Scharf. “Senate Bill 4 throws that out the window.”

    The bill, which the state Senate approved last week and the House passed on a 44-10 vote Thursday, allows Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek to designate up to eight sites for urban growth boundary expansion — two that exceed 500 acres (202 hectares) and six smaller sites. The Oregon Farm Bureau was among the groups that opposed the bill.

    “There is some extremely valuable farmland in the area that produces Oregonians’ food and provides those families and those employees jobs,” Scharf said. “Farmland, once it is paved over, can never be reclaimed.”

    State Rep. Kim Wallan, a Republican and co-sponsor of the bill, said it gives the governor only narrow authority and is aimed at expediting the process for setting aside land for semiconductor factories, called fabs, and related businesses.

    State officials and lawmakers were stung by Intel’s decision last year to build a $20 billion chipmaking complex in Ohio instead of Oregon, where suitable zoned land is scarce. Intel is the state’s largest corporate employer.

    In Oregon, once land is included in an urban growth boundary, it is eligible for annexation by a city. Those boundary lines are regularly expanded, but the process can take months or even years. Under the bill, any appeals to the governor’s urban growth boundary expansions are expedited by going straight to the state Supreme Court.

    Kotek’s office said Friday that she will sign the measure into law in the next few days. In a statement Thursday, Kotek said the bill makes Oregon “poised to lay the foundation for the next generation of innovation and production of semiconductors.”

    “Oregon has been at the center of the semiconductor industry in the United States for decades,” Kotek said. “This bill is an absolutely essential tool for leading a coordinated effort with the private sector to ensure we can compete for federal funds to expand advanced manufacturing in Oregon.”

    The CHIPS and Science Act that Congress passed last year provides $39 billion for companies constructing or expanding facilities that will manufacture semiconductors and those that will assemble, test and package the chips.

    It was Republican Gov. Tom McCall, who served from 1967 to 1975, who urged lawmakers to push for a tough new land-use law. In a 1973 speech to the Legislature, he denounced “sagebrush subdivisions, coastal ‘condomania’ and the ravenous rampage of suburbia.” Lawmakers responded by passing the law that placed growth boundaries on Oregon’s cities.

    Some opponents of the CHIPS bill objected Thursday to changing a system that’s been in place for 50 years.

    “I cannot in good conscience give the governor what is essentially a super-siting authority to take lands and bring them into the urban growth boundary,” said state Rep. Ed Diehl, a Republican. “That is not the Oregon way.”

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  • Microchips or microgreens? Oregon tweaks farm protection law

    Microchips or microgreens? Oregon tweaks farm protection law

    [ad_1]

    SALEM, Ore. — Oregon is changing a half-century-old land-use law to make room for semiconductor development and gain an edge in attracting the multi-billion-dollar industry, upsetting farmers who see their livelihoods at risk.

    Lawmakers backing a bill that also provides about $200 million in grants to chipmakers said it’s needed to make Oregon more competitive in luring more of the multibillion-dollar semiconductor industry to the state. Other lawmakers argued that the measure is an attack on the nation’s first statewide policy — created a half-century ago — that limits urban sprawl and protects farmland and forests.

    “These regulations have resulted in 50 years of success protecting our farm and forest lands, containing urban sprawl, and protecting natural resources,” said Republican state Rep. Anna Scharf. “Senate Bill 4 throws that out the window.”

    The bill, which the state Senate approved last week and the House passed on a 44-10 vote Thursday, allows Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek to designate up to eight sites for urban growth boundary expansion — two that exceed 500 acres (202 hectares) and six smaller sites. The Oregon Farm Bureau was among the groups that opposed the bill.

    “There is some extremely valuable farmland in the area that produces Oregonians’ food and provides those families and those employees jobs,” Scharf said. “Farmland, once it is paved over, can never be reclaimed.”

    State Rep. Kim Wallan, a Republican and co-sponsor of the bill, said it gives the governor only narrow authority and is aimed at expediting the process for setting aside land for semiconductor factories, called fabs, and related businesses.

    State officials and lawmakers were stung by Intel’s decision last year to build a $20 billion chipmaking complex in Ohio instead of Oregon, where suitable zoned land is scarce. Intel is the state’s largest corporate employer.

    In Oregon, once land is included in an urban growth boundary, it is eligible for annexation by a city. Those boundary lines are regularly expanded, but the process can take months or even years. Under the bill, any appeals to the governor’s urban growth boundary expansions are expedited by going straight to the state Supreme Court.

    Kotek’s office said Friday that she will sign the measure into law in the next few days. In a statement Thursday, Kotek said the bill makes Oregon “poised to lay the foundation for the next generation of innovation and production of semiconductors.”

    “Oregon has been at the center of the semiconductor industry in the United States for decades,” Kotek said. “This bill is an absolutely essential tool for leading a coordinated effort with the private sector to ensure we can compete for federal funds to expand advanced manufacturing in Oregon.”

    The CHIPS and Science Act that Congress passed last year provides $39 billion for companies constructing or expanding facilities that will manufacture semiconductors and those that will assemble, test and package the chips.

    It was Republican Gov. Tom McCall, who served from 1967 to 1975, who urged lawmakers to push for a tough new land-use law. In a 1973 speech to the Legislature, he denounced “sagebrush subdivisions, coastal ‘condomania’ and the ravenous rampage of suburbia.” Lawmakers responded by passing the law that placed growth boundaries on Oregon’s cities.

    Some opponents of the CHIPS bill objected Thursday to changing a system that’s been in place for 50 years.

    “I cannot in good conscience give the governor what is essentially a super-siting authority to take lands and bring them into the urban growth boundary,” said state Rep. Ed Diehl, a Republican. “That is not the Oregon way.”

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  • Oregon alters half-century-old land use law for chipmakers

    Oregon alters half-century-old land use law for chipmakers

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    SALEM, Ore. — In an attempt to attract semiconductor companies to Oregon, the state Legislature authorized the governor on Thursday to expand urban growth boundaries to provide land for chipmakers to build factories.

    Lawmakers backing the bill, which also provides some $200 million in grants to chipmakers, said it’s needed to make Oregon more competitive among other states in luring more of the multibillion-dollar semiconductor industry to the state. Other lawmakers argued that the measure is an attack on the nation’s first statewide policy — created a half-century ago — that limits urban sprawl and protects farmland and forests.

    “These regulations have resulted in 50 years of success protecting our farm and forest lands, containing urban sprawl and protecting natural resources,” said Rep. Anna Scharf, a Republican. “Senate Bill 4 throws that out the window.”

    The bill, approved by the state Senate last week and passed by the House on a 44-10 vote Thursday, allows Gov. Tina Kotek to designate up to a maximum of eight sites for urban growth boundary expansion — two that exceed 500 acres (202 hectares) and six smaller sites.

    “There is some extremely valuable farmland in the area that produces Oregonians’ food and provides those families and those employees jobs,” Scharf said. “Farmland, once it is paved over, can never be reclaimed.”

    Rep. Kim Wallan, a Republican and co-sponsor of the bill that a joint committee spent more than a month working on, said it gives Kotek only narrow authority and is aimed at expediting the process for setting aside land for semiconductor factories, called fabs, and related businesses.

    State officials and lawmakers were stung by chipmaker Intel’s decision last year to build a massive $20 billion chipmaking complex in Ohio, and not in Oregon where suitable zoned land is scarce. Intel is the state’s largest corporate employer.

    In Oregon, once land is included in an urban growth boundary, it is eligible for annexation to a city. Those boundary lines are regularly expanded. But the process can take months or even years. Under the bill, any appeals to the governor’s urban growth boundary expansions are expedited by going straight to the state Supreme Court.

    The bill goes to Kotek for signing into law and takes effect immediately. In a statement Thursday, Kotek said the bill makes Oregon “poised to lay the foundation for the next generation of innovation and production of semiconductors.”

    “Oregon has been at the center of the semiconductor industry in the United States for decades,” the Democrat said. “This bill is an absolutely essential tool for leading a coordinated effort with the private sector to ensure we can compete for federal funds to expand advanced manufacturing in Oregon.”

    The CHIPS and Science Act, passed by Congress in 2022, provides $39 billion for companies constructing or expanding facilities that will manufacture semiconductors and those that will assemble, test and package the chips.

    It was Republican Gov. Tom McCall, who served from 1967 to 1975, who had urged lawmakers to push for a tough new land-use law. In a 1973 speech at the Legislature, he denounced “sagebrush subdivisions, coastal ‘condomania’ and the ravenous rampage of suburbia.” Lawmakers responded by passing the law that placed growth boundaries on Oregon’s cities.

    Some opponents of the Oregon CHIPS bill objected on Thursday to changing a system that’s been in place for 50 years.

    “I cannot in good conscience give the governor what is essentially a super-siting authority to take lands and bring them into the urban growth boundary,” said Rep. Ed Diehl, a Republican. “That is not the Oregon way.”

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