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Biden picks Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico to be first Native American interior secretary (nationthailand.com)

Biden picks Rep. Deb Haaland of New Mexico to be first Native American interior secretary

InternationalDec 18. 2020Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., has been nominated to become the first Native American to serve as interior secretary. MUST CREDIT: Washington Post photo by Bonnie Jo Mount 

By The Washington Post · Juliet Eilperin, Dino Grandoni, Brady Dennis

WASHINGTON – President-elect Joe Biden chose Rep. Deb Haaland, D-N.M., Thursday to serve as the first Native American Cabinet secretary and head the Interior Department, a historic pick that marks a turning point for the U.S. government’s relationship with the nation’s Indigenous peoples.

With that selection and others this week, Biden sent a clear message that top officials charged with confronting the nation’s environmental problems will have a shared experience with the Americans who have disproportionately been affected by toxic air and polluted land.

“A voice like mine has never been a Cabinet secretary or at the head of the Department of Interior,” Haaland tweeted Thursday night. ” … I’ll be fierce for all of us, our planet, and all of our protected land.”

In addition to Haaland, Biden has turned to North Carolina environmental regulator Michael Regan to become the first Black man to head the Environmental Protection Agency, as well as Obama administration veteran Brenda Mallory to serve as the first Black chair of the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

While the picks represent a concession to progressives in Biden’s party, who publicly campaigned for an American Indian at the helm of Interior, they were also chosen to personify Biden’s plans to address the long-standing burdens low-income and minority communities have shouldered when it comes to dirty air and water. All three nominees will play a central role in realizing his promises to combat climate change, embrace green energy and address environmental racism.

“We have individuals coming to these positions who have seen what it’s like on the other side, in terms of communities that have suffered,” environmental justice pioneer Bob Bullard said in an interview Thursday. “They have been fighting for justice. Now they are in a position to make change and make policy. That, to me, has the potential to be transformative.”

Earlier this week, Biden chose former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, a Democrat, a proponent of zero-emission vehicles, as his Energy Secretary nominee. He also established the first White House Office of Domestic Climate Policy and designated former EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy to head it. Former Obama budget official Ali Zaidi will serve as her deputy.

“This brilliant, tested, trailblazing team will be ready on day one to confront the existential threat of climate change with a unified national response rooted in science and equity,” Biden said in a statement Thursday. “They share my belief that we have no time to waste to confront the climate crisis, protect our air and drinking water, and deliver justice to communities that have long shouldered the burdens of environmental harms.”

If confirmed, Regan, 44, who heads the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, would be responsible for crafting fuel-efficiency standards for the nation’s cars and trucks, overseeing emissions from power plants and oil and gas facilities and cleaning up the country’s most polluted sites.

Regan has served as the state’s top environmental official since early 2017, when Gov. Roy Cooper, a Democrat, named him to his current role. While union leaders have criticized his approach at times, he has shown a capacity to work with community activists and the corporate world.

Regan forged a multibillion-dollar settlement over cleanups of coal waste with Duke Energy, established an environmental justice advisory board, and reached across the political divide to work with the state’s Republican legislature. In another high-profile case, the state ordered the chemical company Chemours to virtually eliminate a group of man-made chemicals from seeping into the Cape Fear River.

Before entering state government, Regan worked on climate change and pollution issues as southeast regional director for the Environmental Defense Fund, an advocacy group. “Michael knows how to make progress even when that isn’t easy – that’s a necessary skill in North Carolina,” the group’s president, Fred Krupp, said in an email.

In selecting 60-year-old Haaland, a member of Pueblo of Laguna, Biden has placed the descendant of the original people to populate North America atop a 171-year-old institution that has often had a fraught relationship with the nation’s 574 federally recognized tribes.

Three divisions of Interior have a tremendous impact on Indian Country, including the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Bureau of Indian Education and the Bureau of Trust Funds Administration, which manages billions held in trust by the U.S. government.

“It’s called plenary power,” said University of Colorado Boulder law professor Charles Wilkinson. “Native people jokingly call it, ‘plenty power.’ “

Born in Arizona to a Native American mother who served in the Navy and a Norwegian American father who was an active-duty Marine, Haaland bounced between 13 public schools as the family changed military bases. At 15, she worked at a bakery, and later attended law school with the help of student loans and food stamps, occasionally experiencing homelessness as a single mother.

Now, after serving a single term in Congress, she will oversee a department that manages roughly one-fifth of land in the U.S. While she hails from a top oil-and gas-producing state, Haaland has pledged to transform the department from a champion of fossil fuel development into a promoter of renewable energy and policies to mitigate climate change.

“I come from New Mexico. It’s a big gas and oil state. And I care about every single job,” Haaland said in a recent interview with The Washington Post. But she added: “We don’t want to go back to normal, right? We don’t want to go back to where we were because that economy wasn’t working for a lot of people.”

Biden, meanwhile, has pledged to halt all new oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters, a daunting task that faces both legal and political obstacles. The extraction of oil, gas and coal in these areas accounts for nearly a quarter of the nation’s annual carbon output.

In a sign of the opposition the administration will soon face, the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association issued a statement noting drilling on federal land generates $800 million annually for the state’s government. “We hope Rep. Haaland will employ a balanced approach that considers the needs of all who depend on public lands, including the thousands of men and women and families whose livelihoods depend on access to public lands for resource development,” the group said.

Interior oversees vast protected areas – including 75 million acres of wilderness and 422 national park sites, as well as national monuments and wildlife refuges. It safeguards more than 1,000 endangered species, and manages massive water projects in the West that help sustain farmland and provide drinking water for major cities including Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

Haaland just won reelection from a north central New Mexico district that leans Democratic. If confirmed by the Senate, her party will have a razor-thin margin over Republicans in the House until her seat is filled. Right now Democrats hold 222 seats, pending a re-canvassing in a New York race and challenges in Iowa, and Biden has already tapped two other House Democrats to serve in his administration, Reps. Cedric Richmond of Louisiana and Marcia Fudge of Ohio.

But House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Wednesday that she would not stand in the way of Haaland leaving the House, calling her “one of the most respected and one of the best members of Congress I have served with.”

As a child, Haaland spent summers with her grandparents in a house without running water in Mesita, one of Laguna Pueblo’s small villages in New Mexico.

“As kids we moved a lot because my dad was in the service, but no matter where we were he would take us outside,” she recalled. “In New Mexico we would hike in Jemez during a rainstorm, or at other military bases we would visit the ocean.”

Rep. Raúl Grijalva., D-Ariz., who chairs the House Natural Resources Committee and helped lead the campaign for Haaland to be interior secretary, said a diverse Cabinet will pursue environmental policies that are “inclusive and involving the breadth of who the American people are.”

“That’s important, that nobody be left behind as we go forward,” he added.

Biden’s decision to appoint Haaland to head Interior will hold profound meaning for the 1.9 million Native Americans whose education and health care are often influenced by the department’s decisions.

Jim Enote, a Zuni tribal member and chief executive of the Native-led Colorado Plateau Foundation, said in an interview that the move signals how much has changed over the past half-century. Native Americans “do not participate in the same channels of influence as other Americans,” he said, and some previous Interior secretaries have held a dismissive attitude toward the country’s first inhabitants.

The legacy of Interior is blemished by instances of federal officials removing Native Americans from their ancestral lands – including from Yellowstone, the first and perhaps most iconic national park.

Years later, in 1972, several hundred tribal activists took over the Interior Department headquarters in Washington to draw attention to their plight. In 1983, then-Interior Secretary James Watt blamed the problems on U.S. reservations on Indigenous culture.

“If you want an example of the failure of socialism,” Watt said in an interview on a satellite radio show based in Tulsa, “don’t go to Russia. Come to America and go to the Indian reservations.”

Biden’s choice comes as the federal government’s relationship with tribes has eroded under the Trump administration, which has removed protections from sacred tribal sites in Utah’s Bears Ears National Monument and allowed oil drillers into Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuges, home to the caribou that Native Alaskans hunt for food.

“The Trump administration has not been kind to Indian country,” Haaland said. “He has thrown tribal consultation essentially out the window.”

She argued that Trump’s interior secretaries, Ryan Zinke and David Bernhardt, reorganized the Bureau of Indian Affairs and other agencies in ways that hampered the ability of Native Americans to confer with federal officials.

Chase Iron Eyes, a Native American activist and attorney with the Lakota People’s Law Project, said that while Indigenous people have several champions in Congress, he is elated the department will be run by a tribal member.

“It could not have been in our forefathers’ dreams to have an actual Indian be appointed at the Cabinet level in the agency that is meant to oversee their absorption,” he said.

Charles Curtis, a Republican and member of the Kaw nation who was vice president from 1929 to 1933 under President Herbert Hoover, was the first person of Native American ancestry to serve at the highest levels of the federal government.

Haaland bolstered her national profile in 2016 by going to the Standing Rock Sioux’s reservation in North and South Dakota to join tribal leaders in opposition to the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline. “She asked what I needed and what the tribe needed,” said Jodi Archambault, a former special assistant to Barack Obama for Native American affairs and a member of the tribe. Haaland, she said, was able to provide support from some New Mexico labor unions – and tortillas and green chili stew.

“She brought her own cooking things and opened her trunk up, and said, ‘This is the best I can do,’ ” Archambault said, adding, “The stew was really good; the tortillas were excellent.”

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States report confusion as feds slash vaccine shipments, and Pfizer says it has ‘millions’ of unclaimed doses (nationthailand.com)

States report confusion as feds slash vaccine shipments, and Pfizer says it has ‘millions’ of unclaimed doses

InternationalDec 18. 2020

By The Washington Post · Isaac Stanley-Becker, Yasmeen Abutaleb, Lena H. Sun, Josh Dawsey

WASHINGTON – State officials said they were alerted late Wednesday that their second shipments of Pfizer-BioNTech’s vaccine had been drastically cut for next week, sparking widespread confusion and conflicting statements from Pfizer and federal officials about who was to blame.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/c/embed/90c241ec-6c2d-4184-8ddb-9423317da25e?ptvads=block&playthrough=false

The reduction prompted concern in health departments across the country about whether Operation Warp Speed, the Trump administration’s vaccine accelerator, was capable of distributing doses quickly enough to meet the target of delivering first shots to 20 million people by year’s end. A senior administration official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal plans, said the revised estimates were the result of states requesting an expedited timeline for locking in their allocations for the following week – moving the notification of how many doses they could order from Friday to Tuesday. Because Pfizer is producing doses daily, the official said, there are fewer doses available on Tuesday than there would be on Friday.

But Pfizer released a statement on Thursday that seemed to contradictthat explanation, saying the company faced no production problems and had many more doses available right now than were being distributed.

“We have millions more doses sitting in our warehouse but, as of now, we have not received any shipment instructions for additional doses,” the statement read.

The clashing accounts came as Pfizer and the Trump administration negotiate additional vaccine doses for the United States. Pfizer, which has already committed to providing the government with 100 million doses, said that as recently as October, federal officials had turned down its entreaties to lock in another 100 million doses. When those officials sought to buy those doses later, the company said its supplies were already committed to other countries. Now the pharmaceutical giant and the administration are nearing an agreement that would give the United States between 50 million and 100 million doses, probably spread over the second and third quarters of 2021, according to people knowledgeable about the negotiations who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the news media.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, in a CNBC appearance on Thursday, noted that Pfizer had reduced its manufacturing projection for this year from 100 million doses to 50 million doses, and said he would “like to have more visibility” into the company’s manufacturing capacity.

“I do wish we would stop just talking about this Pfizer thing,” Azar said, noting that other vaccines were in the pipeline.

The company said the change, announced in November, had to do with difficulties procuring sufficient raw ingredients and noted in its statement Thursday that it had shared “every aspect of our production and distribution capabilities” in weekly meetings with federal officials.

Earlier this week, 2.9 million doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine were cleared for shipment, while 5.9 million doses of Moderna’s regimen are poised to go out next week if the vaccine is authorized, as expected. That will be on top of additional supply from Pfizer, which Azar said Wednesday would amount to 2 million doses next week.

That represents a sharp drop-off from what states were expecting, according to state health officials. At least six states – from Washington to Florida – were informed by federal health authorities of the shortfall, forcing last-minute changes to vaccine distribution plans for next week. Some were intending to use the second shipment to begin vaccinating residents of long-term care facilities, creating dilemmas about whether to go ahead with those plans or to finish inoculating health-care providers, officials said.

Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, said anticipated shipments to the state in the next two weeks had been cut roughly in half. The uncertainty was even more pronounced in Florida, where Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said new shipments from Pfizer were “on hold” as officials in his administration reported their expected allocation disappearing entirely in Tiberius, the online tracking system the administration uses to coordinate with the states. Fred Piccolo, a spokesman for DeSantis, said the numbers had come back online by Thursday but had been reduced significantly.

“It’s forty percent less than we were originally thinking,” Washington Health Secretary John Wiesman said. “We thought we were getting 74,100 and now we are planning for 44,850 doses.”

Maine said it is receiving about 40% less than expected – 8,775 doses rather than 13,650 doses. The state will not be able to fully launch its program next week to vaccinate residents and staffs of all long-term care facilities, said Robert Long, a spokesman for the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention.

Michael Pratt, an HHS spokesperson, denied any changes to “numbers locked in with states” and said the government was on track to allocate enough vaccine for about 20 million people to receive their first doses by year’s end.

“Each week, OWS will let states know how many doses are available to order against for the coming week,” he said.

The senior administration official said moving up the notice to Tuesday was the reason for the one-week shortfall, as “we are sending doses that have been produced, verified and released.”

Wiesman, of Washington state, said he could appreciate Warp Speed’s decision to provide numbers of verified doses only, as opposed to an estimate of what might be available by week’s end. But he said states cannot plan without a longer-term sense of what they will receive, which has been impossible because of changing estimates from the pharmaceutical companies and from Operation Warp Speed.

“We need to have some sense of what regular production is going to be, what the throughput of the manufacturer is so we can look more than a week ahead,” he said.

Some of these concerns were communicated on a call last week with governors and administration officials, including Vice President Mike Pence, Azar and Gen. Gustave Perna, chief operating officer of Operation Warp Speed. There was only preliminary guidance on shipments for this week, said a state official who participated in the call. Administration officials, peppered with questions about the initial supply of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine, emphasized the Moderna vaccine, which they said would be available soon.

FedEx and UPS are distributing the Pfizer vaccine; Moderna’s product will be moved by McKesson, a major medical distributor. Both vaccines are two-dose regimens, and the Trump administration has elected to hold back shipments of the second dose in an effort to ensure that everyone gets their second shot.

Another person involved in the planning, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to discuss the situation, said Pfizer executives were baffled that the administration was not immediately distributing all of its vaccine, instead leaving much of it on the shelves.

In one bright spot for hospitals receiving the initial shipments of the Pfizer vaccine this week, some health-care providers discovered that they could get as many as seven doses out of vials they were told contained five allotments of the precious vaccine.

The Food and Drug Administration advised hospitals to use the additional supply, while Pfizer said the amount of vaccine remaining in the vial after five doses may vary, instructing health-care providers to consult their own immunization policies.

One complicating factor was that companion kits shipped to vaccination sites by the federal government did not contain many spare syringes needed to give the excess doses. The administration official said additional materials will be included in the future kits to accommodate additional doses that can be drawn from the vials of Pfizer vaccine.

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Over 38 million people in England face highest virus curbs (nationthailand.com)

Over 38 million people in England face highest virus curbs

InternationalDec 18. 2020A covid-19 public health information board in London’s Covent Garden, after the capital was placed into tier 3 coronavirus restrictions on Dec. 16, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Betty Laura Zapata. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Emily Ashton

More than 38 million people in England will be ordered to comply with the toughest level of coronavirus restrictions from Saturday after ministers acted to slow a surge in infections.

Health Secretary Matt Hancock said more parts of the east and southeast of England will face the toughest rules — meaning 68% of England’s population will be under tier 3, 30% in tier 2, and just 2% in the lowest tier 1.

The move is another huge blow to the hospitality industry ahead of Christmas, as tier 3 means pubs, restaurants, bars and indoor entertainment venues must close.

“Businesses will have bought stock which will now go to waste and more people will lose work at a stressful time,” said Kate Nicholls, chief executive officer of the UKHospitality industry group. “Hotels are now facing a deluge of short-notice cancellations because of the tightening of restrictions. What was already looking like a bleak Christmas is now looking like a total write-off.”

Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak said the government’s job support program, which pays 80% of furloughed workers wages, will be extended by a month to the end of April. The government’s state-backed loan programs for struggling businesses will also now be open until the end of March, rather than January.

London was moved to the highest tier on Wednesday after a rapid spread of infections across the capital in recent days. It will now be joined by the nearby counties of Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, most of Surrey, and parts of Cambridgeshire, East Sussex and Hampshire, Hancock told the House of Commons on Thursday.

Cases increased by 46% in southeast England in the last week.

The vast majority of regions already in tier 3, including Greater Manchester in northwest England, will stay in that bracket — prompting anger from local lawmakers including senior Conservative Graham Brady, who said the region has already been in “severe restrictions” for nine months.

The southwest city of Bristol and nearby north Somerset will move down to tier 2, and the West Midlands county of Herefordshire will drop to the lowest tier 1.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson is going ahead with plans to let people celebrate with two other households over five days at Christmas, despite doctors warning the relaxation will lead to a spike in cases, hospitalizations and deaths.

The public must “exercise a high degree of personal responsibility” and “avoid contact with elderly people wherever possible,” Johnson said on Wednesday.

Hancock said people must continue to “be cautious” as the U.K. rolls out a coronavirus vaccine.

“We’ve come so far, we mustn’t blow it now,” he told Parliament. “I regret having to take the action that we have to take. I deem it necessary and there is a strong view right across government that these actions are necessary.”

Johnson faces a looming battle with his own lawmakers when the restrictions are put to a vote at the end of January, with increasing numbers opposed to his coronavirus strategy.

Conservative MP Stephen McPartland said on Twitter it is “ridiculous” that his Hertfordshire district had been moved into tier 3. “Totally unacceptable and clearly shows I was right to vote against a second lockdown and tier system,” he wrote.

Steve Baker, a former minister and deputy chair of the Covid Recovery Group of skeptical rank-and-file lawmakers, said the government “must now show how they will lift restrictions as the vaccine rolls out.”

Teaching unions hit out at the government for announcing Thursday that high schools in England will have a staggered return in January, with some pupils learning online during the first week. Ministers said this will allow schools to set up a new mass testing program.

The National Education Union said making the announcement at the end of term demonstrated “ministerial panic rather than rational and responsible action,” and the government has failed to understand the “fundamental issues” involved in testing secondary school pupils.

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Mexico City resists lockdown with hospital occupancy at 75% (nationthailand.com)

Mexico City resists lockdown with hospital occupancy at 75%

InternationalDec 18. 2020Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador speaks during a news conference at the National Palace in Mexico City on Nov. 25, 2020, with mayor Claudia Sheinbaum seated on the right. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Alejandro Cegarra. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Andrea Navarro

Every day this week Mexico City has set a record for hospital beds occupied by covid patients, driving numbers above those last spring. The mayor is urging people to stay inside. For many being cared for at home, lines to refill oxygen tanks at local outlets stretch around the block. The death toll has risen above 19,000.

Everything about the situation screams emergency. And Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum has said that’s what it is. What she hasn’t done is what many health experts consider vital: move the city’s status on the national covid scale from orange to red and trigger a full shutdown at the height of holiday shopping.

“Her message is confusing — Is it orange? Is it red? You can go outside but it’s better to stay home — this is leading people to make bad decisions,” said former health minister Salomon Chertorivski in a radio interview this week.

Jokes are making the rounds about how dark a shade of orange you can have as long as it’s not red. Orange, many here now say, is not the new black. It’s the new red.

The mayor is in a delicate spot. President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, known as AMLO, has always viewed the virus with the suspicion of a populist and has pressed hard to keep the economy open for business.

“There’s fear of contradicting the federal government and the president, which makes it hard to enforce the required measures,” Chertorivski, who is from an opposition party, said. “The city is being submissive.”

Eurasia Group analyst Carlos Petersen agreed that the mayor doesn’t find it easy to act on her own. “There seems to be an inclination from the city government to implement more restrictions but there’s an aversion at the federal level to shut down the economy,” he said in an interview.

Sheinbaum may also have presidential aspirations, Petersen said, adding to pressures to stay within party lines. “She knows the main elector for the 2024 election is AMLO,” he said.

Only two states in Mexico — Baja California and Zacatecas — are currently in red, with most of the rest in orange. Overall cases stand at nearly 1.3 million and deaths close to 116,000. Mexico is among the world’s worst-hit countries by the pandemic.

The epicenter remains the capital, where 20% of all Mexican cases are concentrated.

“We’re doing all we can to avoid returning to the painful situation of shutting down,” Sheinbaum said at a press conference Tuesday. Asked whether she was acting on Lopez Obrador’s orders, she said, “The city makes its own decisions. This time of the year is very important in economic terms for the wellbeing of many families.”

Every day this week Mexico City has set a record for hospital beds occupied by covid patients, driving numbers above those last spring. The mayor is urging people to stay inside. For many being cared for at home, lines to refill oxygen tanks at local outlets stretch around the block. The death toll has risen above 19,000.

The criteria for moving from orange to red include percentage of hospital beds occupied, and Mexico City just added 260 beds, giving it more time. It is also now carrying out 20,000 rapid tests daily to find cases more quickly and stop them from spreading, Sheinbaum said. On Tuesday, 4,834 hospital beds were in use. A May 22 record of 4,553 hospitalizations was broken Dec. 12 and has continued to increase.

Overall hospital capacity is at around 75%, Sheinbaum said, calling on people to stay home to help reduce infections.

Billionaire Carlos Slim, Walmart de Mexico and other companies announced on Wednesday a joint donation of 495 million pesos ($25 million) to add beds at the Citibanamex Center that’s been reconfigured for Covid patients.”It’s one thing to have beds, but it’s another thing to have the personnel and the equipment to take care of those extra beds,” said Alejandro Macias, Mexico’s czar during the H1N1 epidemic in 2009. “Health workers are tired.”

But city center streets have been packed with pedestrians, most in masks but not all. Signs inside stores read, “Hurry, we close at 5pm today.” Adding to the infections are underground parties and holiday dinners, one of which was hosted by billionaire Ricardo Salinas.

“Life is only lived once and it’s a risk living it, a risk that’s worth it,” he tweeted alongside a picture of at least 40 guests in a holiday dinner with executives from one of his companies.

In the meantime, Guillermina Diaz waited an hour to refill an oxygen tank for her 67-year-old father who’s recovering from the coronavirus at home, after spending 24 days in the hospital. Finding him a hospital bed was a feat on its own, she said, and now family members take turns finding places to fill the tanks.

“At least I found some,” she said. “The worst part is calling place after place and hearing there’s none left.”

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U.S. housing starts rose for a third-straight month in November (nationthailand.com)

U.S. housing starts rose for a third-straight month in November

InternationalDec 18. 2020A contractor wearing a protective mask moves pieces of sheet rock while working at a home under construction at The Estates at Kelley Farms new housing development in Ballston Lake, N.Y., on Dec. 11, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Angus Mordant. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Olivia Rockeman

U.S. new home construction rose more than forecast to a nine-month high in November, highlighting the strength of a residential housing market that’s been supported by strong demand amid low interest rates.

Residential starts rose 1.2% to a 1.547 million annualized rate from an downwardly revised 1.528 million a month earlier, according to government report released Thursday. The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 1.535 million pace.

The unexpected strength, bringing new home construction nearly back to February’s level, underscores robust buyer interest in new homes thanks to record-low mortgage rates and Americans looking for bigger spaces during the pandemic.

“Housing remains a bright spot in an otherwise weak economy, seeing a bounce from strong demand and low mortgage rates,” Rubeela Farooqi, chief U.S. economist at High Frequency Economics, wrote in a report. “Lean inventories will likely continue to support building activity over coming months, mostly in the single-family sector.”

Single-family starts rose for a seventh month to a 1.186 million annualized rate that was the highest since 2007, while starts for projects with five or more units, a category that tends to be volatile and includes apartments and condos, increased to 352,000.

New construction strength was broad-based nationally. Starts climbed in all four regions, led by a 12.9% rise in the Northeast, according to the report, which is published jointly by the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Still, housing may face headwinds as the worsening spread of the virus prompts fresh restrictions and stimulus talks in Washington remain unresolved. Separately, another government report on Thursday showed that applications for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly jumped last week to the highest level in three months.

Thursday’s housing report showed applications to build, a proxy for future construction, rose to 1.639 million, the highest since 2006. New single-family homes sold but not started also reached a 14-year high, indicating that builders will be able to keep busy for some time.

“Construction activity has not yet fully caught up with the surge in housing activity, leaving room for modest further gains,” Ian Shepherdson of Pantheon Macroeconomics said in a note. “Home sales have peaked, at least for now, though we think a renewed increase is likely next spring.”

A separate report Wednesday showed that U.S. homebuilder confidence eased slightly in December to the second-best level on record following the prior month’s peak.

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SNB defies U.S. criticism to renew currency intervention vow (nationthailand.com)

SNB defies U.S. criticism to renew currency intervention vow

InternationalDec 18. 2020A Swiss national flag flies in front of the Swiss National Bank in Bern, Switzerland, on June 18, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Stefan Wermuth. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Catherine Bosley

The Swiss National Bank renewed its pledge to use currency interventions to counter upward pressure on the franc just a day after being censured by the U.S. for the practice.

SNB officials led by President Thomas Jordan called the franc “highly valued,” sticking with a key phrase they use to signal they remain on alert. They also kept their policy rate and deposit rate at -0.75%, a move expected by economists, citing a bleak outlook for inflation.

Given the domestic bond market is small and illiquid, the strategy of negative interest rates plus interventions is “the most effective that we have,” Jordan told Bloomberg in an interview.

The central bank said the coronavirus is “continuing to have a strong adverse effect on the economy.” Consumer prices have been falling for months, and a pickup is likely to be slow: the SNB forecasts that inflation will be stuck around zero over the next two years.

The U.S. Treasury Department designated Switzerland a currency manipulator on Wednesday after the SNB’s interventions surged to 90 billion francs ($102 billion) in the first six months of this year. It had to step up the action to counter a rush of investors into the perceived safety of the Swiss currency amid the pandemic.

While the exchange rate has eased somewhat in recent months, in part thanks to the European Union’s historic spending package, it’s still pushing down on inflation by making imports cheaper.

The currency was at 1.08207 per euro at 2:07 p.m. in Zurich, down slightly on the day.

In its updated forecasts, the central bank sees the economy growing 2.5%-3% next year. Output shrank by the most in decades this year as shops and businesses were shut to stem the spread of the virus, though the slump was mild compared with many other European countries.

The government is poised to intensify social distancing restrictions because of the second wave, which would drag on the recovery. The SNB said economic momentum will remain weak into early 2021.

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Aluminum surges as buyers worry U.S. may reapply Rusal sanctions (nationthailand.com)

Aluminum surges as buyers worry U.S. may reapply Rusal sanctions

InternationalDec 18. 2020Bound aluminium ingots sit in the casting shop at the Casting And Mechanical Plant SKAD Ltd. in Divnogorsk, Russia, on Nov. 29, 2019. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Andrey Rudakov. 

By Syndication Washington Post, Bloomberg · Joe Deaux, Mark Burton, Yvonne Yue Li, Yuliya Fedorinova

Aluminum surged to the highest in more than two years on speculation that the U.S. could reapply sanctions on one of the world’s largest producers, after a report that European officials told the U.S. that Oleg Deripaska has retained significant day-to-day influence over United Co. Rusal International.

Renewed U.S. sanctions on Rusal could crimp global supplies of the metal. Aluminum surged in April 2018 when the government first announced that it was sanctioning Russian individuals and firms, including Rusal, to retaliate against Moscow for meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election. The action caused concern that supply would be severely limited, and sent buyers scrambling to obtain metal in any form that they could get their hands on.

“Aluminium has not been loved like the other metals in recent months,” Michael Cuoco, head of hedge-fund sales for metals and bulks at StoneX, said by email. “But if something like this is even percolating in the background, just rewind the tape to 2018, when the mighty metal rallied from $1,980 to $2,718.”

An assessment sent to U.S. officials earlier this year concluded that Deripaska continued to exert control over Rusal, despite significantly reducing his ownership stake almost two years ago as part of an agreement with the U.S. to lift sanctions on the producer.

Russia’s primary aluminum output accounts for about 6% of global supply, with Rusal being the top supplier in Europe and among the top five in the U.S., according to Harbor Intelligence. Aluminum for delivery in three months rose 1.6% to $2,068 a metric ton in London, after earlier touching $2,096 a ton, the highest since October 2018.

“If this leads to a repeat of what happened in 2018, there’ll be a huge impact on the aluminum market, with possible more sanctions on Rusal likely tightening the market and a boost to aluminum premium,” said Wenyu Yao, senior commodities strategist at ING Bank.

After sanctions were lifted, Deripaska’s stake in En+ that controls Rusal declined to about 45% in En+. Rusal shares fell as much as 10% and traded down 5% at 5:43 p.m. in Moscow.

After the sanctions announcement in 2018, Rusal wanted to secure its survival with a plan to reduce Deripaska’s influence at the company. The plan, known as the Barker Plan, named for En+ Group Chairman Greg Barker, would cut Deripaska’s shareholding to below 50% in En+ and appoint a majority of independent directors.

“This case is political and hard to say if the letter may lead to sanctions,” Kirill Chuyko, chief of research at BCS Global Markets said by phone. “There is no signs that Deripaska affects management’s decisions in Rusal or En+, but he is still the largest shareholder and probably tracks what is going on in the company.”

Rusal and En+ operational management was kept nearly unchanged when the company emerged from the sanctions as Treasury only demanded the board to be formed from independent directors and for Deripaska to relinquish control, which was done, Chuyko said.

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Stimulus talks could spill into weekend as lawmakers scramble to complete deal (nationthailand.com)

Stimulus talks could spill into weekend as lawmakers scramble to complete deal

InternationalDec 18. 2020

By The Washington Post · Mike DeBonis, Jeff Stein, Seung Min Kim

WASHINGTON – White House officials and congressional leaders are trying to address a number of lingering policy disagreements as they race to finalize an approximately $900 billion coronavirus relief package, with growing signs that the talks will drag into the weekend.

Among the most vexing issues is whether to curb the powers of the Federal Reserve and how to structure a new round of stimulus checks. Lawmakers are also clashing over aid for theaters and music venues, and relief for cities and states. They have fought over many of these issues since May, and they were trying to resolve them all at once on Thursday, creating a chaotic scene with numerous lawmakers unsure about the latest state of play.

Negotiators were hoping to resolve all of their differences and pass matching bills through the House and the Senate by Friday night to marry the stimulus bill with a government funding package. But the prospects of this all happening appeared to slip away late Thursday. If they do not pass at least a stop-gap spending bill by Friday night, the government will shut down Saturday.

“We need to complete this work and complete it right away,” Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said late Thursday. “The Senate’s not going anywhere until we have covid relief out the door. . . . In the meantime, we’re going to stay productive.”

Congressional leaders have cited significant progress in recent days as talks accelerated. While several difficult sticking points remain, aides are expressing optimism that no new problems would prevent an agreement.

The stimulus package under discussion would include $600 stimulus checks for millions of Americans, 10 weeks of jobless aid, $330 billion in small business assistance, money for vaccine distribution, and funding for a range of other programs. Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., said that lawmakers are still reviewing how to design eligibility for the stimulus checks and that disagreements over this issue remains “one of the biggest challenges.”

Congressional leaders add stimulus checks to $900 billion economic relief deal

Many other issues remain unresolved. Republicans were still demanding limits to emergency lending programs of the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. Democrats believe these restrictions, pushed primarily by Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., would constrain the ability of the incoming Biden administration to stabilize the economy during a downturn.

Toomey on Thursday told reporters the issue was a “bright red line” for him in negotiations. Sen. John Barasso, R-Wyo., the third highest-ranking Republican senator, also called language on the Fed facilities “critically important” for GOP lawmakers. Lawmakers on Thursday were consulting with Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell about the impact of the Toomey push.

Democratic lawmakers, meanwhile, are seeking to include funding for the Federal Emergency Management Agency to give to states and cities in emergencies. Republicans are wary that measure could amount to a form of aid for states and cities and have pushed back against it. Republican lawmakers agreed to drop their demands for a sweeping coronavirus liability shield in exchange for Democrats agreeing to abandon their push for hundreds of billions in state and local aid, but the dispute about the FEMA money remains unresolved. Democrats say the measure would only cost about $1 billion.

Similarly, Democratic lawmakers are seeking to delay the Dec. 31 deadline that states and cities have to spend unused federal assistance before that funding expires and has to be returned. Republicans have been resistant to that change as well, aides said.

Democrats have insisted on an extension of a federal eviction moratorium that is set to expire by the end of the year. Senate Banking Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, told reporters Thursday that he was seeking additional rental assistance to “avoid the need” for extending the moratorium. A one-month extension in the moratorium was included in the bipartisan compromise introduced by centrist lawmakers earlier this month.

“The question is whether there is one needed … if we get an adequate rental assistance program,” Crapo said.

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., is also pushing a $17 billion plan called “Save Our Stages” to devote federal assistance to venues shut down by the pandemic and at risk of permanent closure. Some senior Republicans view the request as excessive and think some of the funding would be better spent on restaurants and additional Paycheck Protection Program assistance, according to aides familiar with internal discussions. Schumer has pushed for funding for restaurants and a second round of PPP as well.

The “Save Our Stages” measure has some Republican support, including from Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who co-authored a $10 billion aid bill earlier this year. Cornyn told reporters Thursday that lawmakers are trying to reach an agreement on a funding formula for the provision and the eligibility criteria for the pool of money, citing the needs of zoos, community theaters, museums and other groups.

“I think the Federal Reserve authority there’s a really strong interest in making sure . . . that door is is shut. And that’s a big priority for a lot of our members. ‘Save Our Stages’ I know is in play,” Thune, told reporters on Thursday.

The scramble for a deal comes amid numerous signs the economy is deteriorating again. Jobless claims have risen in recent weeks as a surge in new coronavirus cases has led to new restrictions on commerce. The pace of hiring has also slowed, and retail sales came in weaker than expected in November, an ominous sign during the holidays.

Pelosi and Schumer spoke with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at 10:30 p.m. Wednesday and agreed to trade offers and resume conversations Thursday morning, a Pelosi spokesman said on Twitter.

“Everyone wants to see this get done, and soon,” Schumer said in a floor speech. “None of the remaining hurdles cannot be overcome.”

One central unresolved matter surrounds a Republican desire to tighten restrictions on the Federal Reserve’s ability to exercise its emergency lending authority amid the pandemic. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin in November moved to wind down several emergency credit facilities totaling $500 billion that were authorized by the Cares Act passed in March. But several Republicans – led by Toomey, the incoming GOP leader of the Senate Banking Committee – want firmer limitations on the Fed’s own statutory powers to intervene under “unusual and exigent circumstances.”

Toomey included language in a GOP-drafted coronavirus aid proposal that was blocked by Senate Democrats in September that would affirmatively prevent the Fed from pursuing any further lending past early January for facilities funded by the Cares Act. Republicans are pushing to include similar language in the pending bill, but Democrats are fiercely resisting the move – believing it will hamstring Biden and his nominee for treasury secretary, former Fed chair Janet Yellen, as they seek to guide the economic recovery.

“It’s no surprise that Republicans are drawing a line in the sand over their ability to sabotage the economy, and tie the Biden administration’s hands,” Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, said in a statement. Sen Jon Tester, D-Mont., also criticized the timing of the change as “pretty obviously suspect.”

The various lending facilities include funds meant to ensure liquidity in various commercial credit markets, as well as vehicles to back Main Street loans for small businesses and to buy up municipal bond obligations from states and certain large cities and counties – freeing up their balances sheets amid fiscal distress. The latter program, which held $1.45 billion in bonds at the end of November, is of special note because federal aid to states and cities has become politically treacherous on Capitol Hill, and many Republicans have pointedly opposed any aid that could be construed as helping to bail jurisdictions out of fiscal distress that predated the pandemic.

The legislation taking shape is expected to devote about $330 billion for small-business relief, including $257 billion for another round of Paycheck Protection Program funding, aides said. Under the plans being considered, firms would likely be required to show declines in revenue of as great as 25 percent to qualify for the assistance, according to two people briefed on discussions. The measure would also have aid directly targeted for the restaurant industry, which is bracing for a severe downturn amid the closure of winter dining due to the surging pandemic.

Congressional leaders have also said they would provide about $300 a week in additional federal unemployment benefits. Those benefits would last for 10 weeks, rather than the 16 weeks called for in the bipartisan plan released by House and Senate lawmakers earlier this week.

Cutting six weeks off the unemployment program was expected to save negotiators about $40 billion.

Base unemployment benefits and a federal unemployment program created in March for gig workers and independent contractors, among others ineligible for traditional unemployment, are also expected to be extended for 10 weeks, people briefed on the talks said. The legislation would not retroactively cover unemployment benefits after the $600 per week benefit approved by Congress expired this summer.

Republicans are also seeking to require beneficiaries from the federal unemployment benefit to receive at least $100 per week in state unemployment benefits, but Democratic aides have rejected that proposal, according to one person briefed on internal discussions. The White House had a similar provision in the unilateral action it took over the summer to extend federal unemployment benefits. Republicans say the measure is necessary to prevent fraud in the unemployment system, while Democrats contend it cruelly cuts the lowest-earners out of government assistance.

The bill is expected to include a second round of stimulus payments, but at $600 per person rather than the $1,200 per person approved in March. The legislation is likely to provide both $600 per adult and $600 per child. Eligibility will be based on the same income threshold as in the Cares Act, which gave full payments to those who had earned less than $75,000 in the previous year. Payments are smaller for those earning over that amount before disappearing entirely for those earning more than $99,000.

Thune suggested to reporters on Thursday that lawmakers were considering lowering that threshold to keep the cost of the provision down. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who along with Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., has pushed for a second round of stimulus checks, told reporters he opposes lowering the income cap.

There are expected to be two other significant policy changes to how the stimulus checks are disbursed. Adults who are claimed as dependents would be eligible for checks, unlike the previous round of payments. And the final measure is likely to be similar to Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio’s legislation to give stimulus payments to U.S. citizens and their children even if they are married to noncitizens. Aides said discussions were fluid and policies had not been finalized.

Thune suggested Wednesday that lawmakers may seek to prevent people on unemployment benefits from also receiving $600 stimulus payments, although he appeared to back off that proposal on Thursday. Aides said that suggestion has been rejected by congressional Democrats and was unlikely to be incorporated in a final agreement.