WORLD NEWS
Ukraine, Russia Agree on ‘Humanitarian Corridors’ for Civilians
The second round of talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations on Thursday ended without a ceasefire agreement, but the two sides agreed to set up humanitarian and evacuation corridors, according to a top Ukrainian official.
Ukraine’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said the two sides will together provide humanitarian corridors to evacuate civilians, deliver food, and deliver medicine to areas with heavy fighting across the country.
“The second round of negotiations is over,” Podolyak wrote on Twitter. “Unfortunately, the results Ukraine needs are not yet achieved. There is a solution only for the organization of humanitarian corridors.”
Previously, the Ukrainian delegation said they were seeking an immediate ceasefire, a temporary peace agreement, and the humanitarian or evacuation corridors for civilians. The first round of talks held in Belarus on Monday resulted in no progress.
The announcement comes as Russian President Vladimir Putin said his country’s military has offered safe corridors to civilians to allow them to leave. During a call with members of his Security Council, Putin alleged without evidence or details that Ukrainian nationalist groups are preventing civilians from leaving areas.
Putin again said the Russian military is fighting “neo-Nazis,” while asserting that some Ukrainians were “fooled by nationalist propaganda.”
During a news conference on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the prospect of another round of talks between the two sides lacks promise. But he said that the two still need to negotiate because “any words are more important than shots.”
Ukrainian Experts Suggest 5 Potential Outcomes For the Russian Invasion
After eight days of what Russian President Vladimir Putin called “special military operations,” a think tank of leading Ukrainian experts has suggested potential outcomes as artillery continues to rain down on cities in the European nation.
Civilians are reeling from the devastation, which has left parts of Kharkiv and Kyiv in ashes as families huddle together within basements and old Soviet-era bunkers.
“My father just celebrated his 67th birthday in a basement, hiding from bombs,” Roman Sheremeta told The Epoch Times.
Sheremeta is an accidental refugee who left Ukraine on business just before the start of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24.
Members of his family are still trapped in Kyiv, which has become impossible to evacuate now due to civilians being targeted by Russian soldiers.
“Reports of people being killed on the roads are everywhere. Russians don’t differentiate between soldiers and civilians,” he said.
Sheremeta is a founding rector of the American University in Kyiv, an economics professor, and the recently appointed co-chair of the Ukrainian American House.
His team of analysts includes former National Reform Council member and co-founder of the Nova Krainia Civic Platform, Valerii Pekar; Associate Professor of the Department of Sociology and Kyiv-Mohyla Business School, Mychailo Wynnyckyj; and economics professor and founder of the market research company Advanter Group, Andrii Dligach.
Fitch, Moody’s Cut Russia’s Sovereign Rating to ‘Junk,’ Rouble Dives to Record Low
Rating agencies Fitch and Moody’s have downgraded Russia’s sovereign rating to junk status as a consequence of tough Western sanctions over the Kremlin-ordered invasion of Ukraine, sending the rouble plunging to a record low.
Fitch downgraded Russia to “B” from “BBB” and put the country’s ratings on “rating watch negative.” Moody’s cut Russia’s rating by six notches, to B3 from Baa3. With the move, the two rating agencies followed in the footsteps of S&P, which last week similarly slashed Russia’s rating to junk.
Turbulence has roiled Russia’s financial markets as a result of harsh sanctions imposed over the attack on Ukraine, which on Thursday entered its eighth day as Ukrainian forces continued their resistance against the invading forces.
Russia’s advance on Kyiv appeared stalled on Thursday and, despite heavy Russian shelling, Ukrainian forces still held Kharkiv and several other cities under attack, according to British military intelligence.
More than a million people have fled Ukraine since Russia’s President Vladimir Putin ordered his forces to launch the multi-pronged assault.
Russia’s War on Ukraine Requires China’s ‘Tacit Approval’: Spalding
Russia’s war on Ukraine could not continue without support from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to one former Air Force Brigadier General.
“The real leverage point here is China,” Gen. Robert Spalding, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, told The Epoch Times on March 3. “It’s not really the Russians, because the Russians could not do what they’ve done without the tacit approval of China.”
“China basically told the Russians ‘don’t invade during the Olympics.’ They knew they were going to invade. They just didn’t want it to upstage the Olympics.”
Spalding noted that the CCP was not joining sanctions issued by Western nations. He added that Russia’s dependence on the CCP to carry out its war on Ukraine raised a vital question: Whether the West had the economic fortitude to impose related sanctions on China.
“The question here is whether or not we’re going to actually put economic sanctions and isolate China for their support of Russia,” Spalding said.
He added that China was acting as a “relief valve” for Russia, providing a much craved-after cash flow even as the rest of the world was trying to turn the tap of Putin’s war machine off. On the first day of Russia’s invasion, the Chinese regime lifted restrictions on wheat imports from Russia, and has since said that trade with Moscow would continue as normal.
Widespread Power Outages Across Taiwan Affect 5 Million Households
Widespread power outages were reported across Taiwan on the morning of March 3, leaving millions without electricity after an alleged accident at a power plant in the southern part of the country.
The blackouts began at about 9 a.m., affecting the areas of Taipei, New Taipei, Hsinchu, Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung, Changhua, Keelung, Taoyuan, Hualien, and Miaoli, according to local reports.
According to Taiwan Power Co. (Taipower), the outages were caused by an equipment failure at the Hsinta Power Plant in Kaohsiung City, which provides around a seventh of Taiwan’s power.
Taipower officials told Taiwan News that the equipment malfunction at the plant in Kaohsiung City’s Yong’an District caused an “imbalance” in the southern power grid, which in turn triggered the Longci substation’s self-protection mechanism to disconnect from the grid.
There was an “instant loss of 10.5 million watts,” the company told local news outlets, and prompted the self-protection mechanisms of power plants across southern Taiwan to disconnect from the southern grid, in turn, prompting the northern and central grid’s protection mechanisms to kick in. That led to widespread power outages across central and northern Taiwan as well.
Taiwan Power Co. officials didn’t respond by press time to a request by The Epoch Times for comment.
“It is expected that normal power supply will be available before noon, and power supply will be resumed in the south at noon,” Taiwan Power Co. said later on March 3.
Netblocks, a watchdog organization that monitors cybersecurity and internet governance, said on Twitter that the outages had taken the internet offline in much of the country, including its capital city of Taipei.
“Confirmed: A power outage has knocked out internet connectivity across much of #Taiwan including Taipei; real-time network data show national connectivity falling to 68% of ordinary levels from ~9 a.m. local time; incident ongoing,” the organization said.
President of Taipower Chung Bin-li said that 5 million households had been affected by the power outage.
The power outages came as former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo arrived in Taipei on Wednesday evening for a four-day visit to the country where he was set to meet Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen.
Beijing Will Invade Taiwan Sooner Rather Than Later, Trump Predicts
Beijing is likely to launch an invasion of Taiwan sooner rather than later, in response to the Biden administration’s handling of both the Afghanistan pullout and Ukraine crisis, according to former U.S. President Donald Trump.
The former president was asked by Fox Business host Maria Bartiromo on March 2, “Do you expect China to invade Taiwan sooner rather than later?”
Trump replies: “I do because they’re seeing how stupid [sic] the United States is run. They’re seeing that our leaders are incompetent.”
The former president also claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin has taken actions that Putin would not have felt emboldened to take if Trump still occupied the White House. “Biden said such weak statements at the beginning that Putin said ‘Oh wow, this is my time to go,’” he said.
Trump added, “And by the way, Taiwan’s going to be next. Just watch Taiwan. President Xi is watching it with glee,” referring to Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The Chinese communist regime considers self-ruled Taiwan as part of its territory to be seized by force, if necessary. Thus analysts have noted that Beijing is keenly observing the unfolding conflict and the United States’ and allies’ response to inform its future actions against the island.
Xi, according to Trump, may feel further emboldened by the United States’ chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan, an event widely considered one of the lowest points of American foreign policy in recent years.
“President Xi happens to be a man with a high intelligence level, and he looks what happened in Afghanistan, the way we pulled out,” Trump said. “He saw the way that we left Afghanistan, like a surrender, and left $85 billion in debts behind and left American citizens there that are still trying to get out. And he sees that, and this is his opportunity to do what he wants to do, and he’s wanted to do that, and China’s wanted to do that for decades.”
Trump’s comments echo statements he made last week before Russia’s full-scale invasion, when he said that Xi would invade Taiwan after taking a cue from Putin, characterizing the two leaders as “twin sisters.”
Coast-to-Coast Human ‘Freedom Chain’ in Canada Planned for Saturday
Various groups across the country are organizing the formation of a human “Freedom Chain” stretching from coast to coast beginning March 5 to urge for the upholding of charter rights and freedoms in Canada.
The plan is for the Freedom Chain to reach across the entirety of the country along the Trans-Canada Highway, which spans 7,476 km, beginning in Victoria, British Columbia, and extending to St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador.
Dozens of private and public Facebook groups as well as several event notices have been created for local coordination.
“The chain is intended to promote and highlight Canadian unity and love during these turbulent times by calling for a hand-to-hand human chain from British Columbia to Newfoundland,” said a Freedom Chain group for southern Ontario.
According to a photo shared on Twitter, the Ontario Freedom Chain will kick off in at 1 p.m. EST on Saturday.
The event comes after authorities most recently dispersed protesters participating in the “Freedom Convoy 2022” that first began to oppose the vaccine mandate imposed on Jan. 15, requiring truck drivers crossing back into Canada to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 if they want to avoid a 14-day quarantine upon re-entry. With large convoys of trucks arriving in Ottawa to stage a peaceful protest, the movement expanded to a national scale, with many joining to oppose other COVID-19 restrictions.
Putin Bombs Biden-Owned Villa in Ukraine while Hammering Biolabs & Pedophile Rings
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday told President Trump that Russia’s military destroyed a multitude of foreign bioweapon facilities that had been running carte blanche in Ukraine until his military took decisive and strategic action to rid the corrupt nation of what he called satanic influence, a Mar-a-Lago source told Real Raw News.
As much of the nation sat glued to televisions and computers watching the illegitimate president’s State of the Union Address—in a room half-filled with imposters—Putin and Trump, from his Mar-a-Lago command center, spent a 20-minute phone call once more discussing the Russian leader’s true reasons for mounting an assault on Ukrainian sovereignty.
Putin spent the first half of the call updating Trump on his efforts to destroy Western-sponsored biolabs in Ukraine, which he called a “blight” on a once beautiful landscape. According to Putin, who in 7 days has become the world’s vilest villain, supplanting Xi Jinping, the Russian military had obliterated the following: 11 U.S. State Department/Department of Defense-funded bioweapon facilities; 4 German toxic chemical research centers; 3 Swiss nanotechnology centers; 1 French bio-tech consortium; and 3 Israeli labs that were feverishly working to weaponize airborne rabies. Additionally, Putin claimed his forces had carried out precision strikes on mobile (18-wheelers unsafely retrofitted into makeshift labs) biolabs attempting to transport lethal pathogens across the Ukrainian border into Poland. He told Trump that Russian SU-35 planes used laser-guided munitions to eliminate the roving labs.
Moreover, Putin said his fighter planes had destroyed a Biden-owned, 200-acre villa 35km west of Kyiv. He insisted that Biden was deeply enmeshed in Ukraine’s criminal enterprises, and promised Trump that he’d soon give the world “all the evidence it needs.” Furthermore, Putin contended that “many people within Biden’s demonic den” profited massively from the “conflagration of evil” that had rooted itself on Ukrainian soil. Twenty of Biden’s foreign cohorts, Putin said, were killed in the attack.
Additionally, Putin continued to denounce stories of his insanity as Western propaganda, and refuted tales of mass defections, or of his convoys running short of fuel and food. Also, he rebuked Western assertions that his troops were committing war crimes by indiscriminately bombing and shelling innocent civilians.
“President Trump, you know what fake news is. This is all fake news. Your media shows the same three pictures of videos over and over again, 24-hours a day, to make false claims I am doing some genocide. Your country’s own intelligence sources admit I’ve sent only 75 planes and no UAVs. If I wanted to conquer Ukraine, I’d send 1,000 planes. You know what real invasion looks like. Go look video footage of America ‘Shock and Awe’ in Iraq. That’s an invasion. I could if I want to, but that’s not my objective,” Putin reportedly told Trump.
U.S. NEWS, POLITIC & GOVERNMENT
US Put “Doomsday Plane” Into the Air This Week After Putin Nuclear Threat
The so-called “doomsday plane”—an aircraft modified by the U.S. military to be operated as a mobile command post and protect the president and high-ranking officials in the event of a high-level disaster—went on a reportedly unusual four-hour flight Monday following a perceived nuclear threat by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
According to multiple news reports, citing military flight tracking websites, the modified Boeing 747, using the call sign GORDO15, made a round-trip flight from a U.S. Air Force base in Nebraska to Chicago.
While the aircraft engage in regular testing missions, Monday’s flight was unusual, iNews reported, because the plane was accompanied by two Cobra Ball jets with the ability to track ballistic missile data.
The over $200 million “doomsday plane” is part of a fleet of E-4 series aircraft which have been militarized from a Boeing 747-200B to function as the National Airborne Operations Center. The E-4s have been in use since the 1970s, and at least one of the planes is kept on alert at all times.
“The conduct of E-4B operations encompasses all phases of the threat spectrum,” according to an Air Force description of the aircraft.
According to Boeing, the aircraft have 13 external communications systems, are designed for missions lasting 72 hours, and include “hardness” features to protect against electromagnetic radiation and the effects of a nuclear blast.
A video posted in 2020 by U.S. Defense News showcases the plane: Meet the E-4B: U.S. Military’s $223 Million Doomsday Plane, Capable of Surviving a Nuclear Blast
US Senate Passes Bill to End COVID-19 National Emergency
The U.S. Senate on March 3 approved a measure that would end the national emergency over COVID-19.
The resolution passed 48–47 on a party-line vote.
All Republicans voted for S.J.Res. 38, which would end the national emergency declared by President Donald Trump on March 13, 2020. All Democrats voted against the declaration, which has been extended twice by President Joe Biden.
Five senators missed the vote, including three Democrats.
“After nearly two years of living under this state of emergency, the American people are worn out and yearning to breathe free; they long for their God-given freedoms, and for leaders to take their side. There is no doubt, it’s time for our nation to learn to live with COVID,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who introduced the measure, said in a statement after the vote.
“I am proud my colleagues came together to repeal this emergency declaration and delivered a symbolic victory to our citizens that normalcy is around the corner and that limited government and our constitutional rights still reign supreme. It’s high time to stop talking about restrictions and the unknown. We must chart a new course to victory today that respects the virus and our freedoms.”
Before voting began, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) urged senators to vote no. He argued that it isn’t the right time to end the emergency declaration, which enables the president to take certain actions, because new variants of the virus that causes COVID-19 may emerge.
The proposal “would precisely handicap the Biden administration’s ability to fight the pandemic and heighten the danger that all our progress is suddenly unraveled in the future,” he said, claiming the declaration “has been one of the most powerful and best tools for mobilizing the federal government to combat the pandemic.”
Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) disagreed, telling the body that the number of people who have been vaccinated combined with those who enjoy natural immunity means “a large majority of the nation are already protected” and that the virus has become endemic.
“When this emergency was first declared two years ago this week, it was needed,” he said, but “it’s past time for the president and governors across the country to give up the extra powers granted to them under the COVID emergency declarations.
“If we’re going to live with this virus and move forward as a country, we must end the national emergency authorization and then other governors across the country should follow suit.”
White House Says Biden Will Veto Bill Ending COVID-19 National Emergency If Passed
The White House opposes a measure that would end the COVID-19 national emergency, it announced on March 3, hours before a Senate vote was planned on the legislation.
Senate Joint Resolution 38 would terminate the emergency declared by former President Donald Trump on March 13, 2020, which has been extended multiple times by President Joe Biden.
Terminating the declaration would “unnecessarily and abruptly curtail the ability of the Administration to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the Executive Office of the President said in a statement.
“COVID-19 has posed an unprecedented public health challenge for the United States. Although we have made tremendous progress in combating the virus and are moving forward safely, the virus continues to pose a risk to the American people and our health care system. We must also be prepared for possible future variants,” the statement reads.
Approving the legislation “would be a reckless and costly mistake,” according to the White House.
White House officials said that if Congress approves the measure, Biden will veto it.
Legislation promoting U.S. energy independence from Russia has been blocked by House Democrats.
House Republicans introduced the “American Independence from Russian Energy Act” on Feb. 28, a measure meant to authorize the Keystone XL pipeline, boost domestic oil and gas production, and prevent President Joe Biden’s executive branch agencies from halting energy leasing on federal land and water, among other provisions. Yet on March 1, the legislation was shot down in a 221–202 vote, almost entirely along partisan lines.
“Getting our pipelines expanded is huge,” Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.), ranking member of the House Natural Resources Committee and a co-sponsor of the measure, told The Epoch Times. “We’re having to import Russian energy to the New England states because we don’t have pipelines that can carry Pennsylvania natural gas up there.”
U.S. crude oil imports from Russia more than doubled in 2021, rising to an average of 209,000 barrels per day from a daily average of roughly 76,000 per day barrels in 2020, according to data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), chair of the House Natural Resources Committee, didn’t respond to a request for comment by press time on his choice to vote down the legislation.
Republicans on the floor voiced near-unanimous support for the measure, with Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) describing U.S. reliance on Russian oil and petroleum products as “unconscionable.”
By contrast, Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) said Republicans “talk about energy independence, yet … are the ones who have consistently voted against and opposed green and renewable energy here at home, which is the fastest way to achieve real energy independence.”
The House recently passed the Postal Service Reform Act with bipartisan support. The Senate is expected to take up the bill in March. The bill bails out the U.S. Postal Service’s retirement health plan and entrenches six‐day delivery. That is not “reform,” as it does not fix any core problems of the troubled government corporation.
The main problem facing the USPS is that first‐class mail volume has fallen 49 percent since 2001 because of the rise of email, online bill‐paying, and other electronic services. The USPS has a monopoly over first‐class mail, so the decline has contributed to more than a decade of financial losses at the government‐owned corporation.
Private companies facing falling demand cut costs and improve efficiencies, but Congress limits the ability of the USPS to do likewise. The House bill relieves the USPS of more than $50 billion in worker retirement health costs at taxpayer expense, but it doesn’t trim the excessive pay and benefits of its unionized workforce.
The House bill requires the USPS to deliver mail to every address in the nation six days a week, but that is wasteful and unneeded because there are fewer letters, advertising brochures, and periodicals in your mailbox these days, and of the ones that still do come, few are time‐sensitive. Congress has also prevented the USPS from closing nearly any of its 31,000 locations, even though thousands of them serve only a handful of customers per day.
Florida to Allow Doctors to Use Off-Label Drugs for Early Treatment of COVID-19
Repurposed drugs that have been shown to prevent or treat COVID-19 may be prescribed by physicians, the Florida Department of Health said in its new COVID-19 guidance for health care practitioners.
The guidance, published on Feb. 24, says that health care practitioners are encouraged to provide early treatment for COVID-19 patients with federally approved generic drugs that they find will work. That’s in addition to the outpatient treatments granted emergency authorization usage (EUA) for people at risk of developing a serious illness.
“When recommending COVID-19 treatment options for patients’ individualized health care needs, physicians should exercise their individual clinical judgment and expertise based on their patient’s needs and preferences,” the guidance states. “These options may include emerging treatments backed by quality evidence, with appropriate patient informed consent, including off-label use or as part of a clinical trial.”
The new guidance is an effort by Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis to offer health care practitioners protection from lawsuits. He said that it’s important for doctors to be able to have access to these drugs.
“We want people to be able to have a right to access these medications, especially if they’re in a situation where nothing else has worked,” DeSantis said in a video announcing the new changes to the COVID-19 guidance.
The guidance also states that doctors can make a report to the Agency for Health Care Administration if their hospital prevents them from treating their patients who wish to try certain medications not recommended by the federal health agencies.
22-Year-Old Stanford Women’s Soccer Goalkeeper and Captain Dies Unexpectedly
ATHLETES, dropping like flies … with no explanations given!
A 22-year-old goalkeeper and captain of the Stanford women’s soccer team died on Tuesday, according to the university.
Stanford University announced the passing of Katie Meyer on Wednesday, which happened in an on-campus residence, but the campus did not provide the cause of death.
“Katie Diane Meyer was born on Jan. 20, 2000, in Burbank, California. Meyer graduated second in her class from the Century Academy in Thousand Oaks, California in 2018 after playing soccer for Newbury Park High school for three years and participating on multiple U.S. national teams,” Stanford Daily reported.
>>Read below the news release from Stanford University
Children Allege North Carolina Bus Driver Offered Them $5 to Swab Their Cheeks With Q-tip
A North Carolina news outlet has reported an incident on Tuesday in which children alleged that a middle school bus driver has been offering them $5 to swab their cheeks with a Q-Tip.
The director of communications for the Charlotte-Mecklenburg School (CMS) system told The Epoch Times that CMS can’t provide details while the incident is being investigated.
“The driver involved in the incident was suspended pending the results of an ongoing investigation,” the director said. “The alleged incident appears to be an individual acting outside of assigned duties and done without the knowledge of the district or school administrator.”
John Paul with WSOC-TV reported that several parents told him that a CMS bus driver for the Ridge Road Middle School in Charlotte offered their children $5 to swab their cheeks.
Paul said that parent Mone Davis reported to the news outlet that her daughter said, “She gave me the Q-Tip thing and made me swab my mouth, and when I was done, I put it in the cylinder and gave it to her. Then she gave me $5.”
The allegations date back to Feb. 15, Paul said, with one report alleging that the bus driver took samples from 10 kids on the bus as well as personal information.
Paul said one child reported to the parent that the bus driver said it was a COVID-19 test, while another child reported to the parent that there were two other adults on the bus who weren’t identified.
ECONOMY & BUSINESS
Ukraine Invasion May Speed Up China’s Plan to Insulate Against US Dollar: Fed Chair
China could very well accelerate its plans to come up with alternatives to the world’s dollar-dominated international payments system, after seeing Russia becoming isolated economically, according to Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell.
Powell made the assessment on March 3 during a Senate Banking Committee hearing, when he was questioned by Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who is the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee.
“I think the Chinese are particularly interested in the fact that we’ve been able to assemble a global coalition to basically shut down the Russian economy,” Reed said.
“And they will start thinking about how they can avoid that fate if they get into similar circumstances,” the senator said, before adding that China “will look very closely” at the “whole issue of the dollar as the medium of exchange to the world.”
While the senator did not elaborate on what “circumstances” the Chinese regime might get into, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has sparked concerns that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may be emboldened and take military actions to fulfill one of its own ambitions—taking over self-governing Taiwan.
The CCP sees Taiwan as part of its territory that must be united with the mainland, by force if necessary. However, Taiwan is a de facto independent entity, where Taiwanese people elect their own government officials through democratic elections.
FOOD CRISIS: EU Expects Shortages, S. Korea Feed Producers to Declare Force Majeur
The food crisis is here. The EU’s agricultural ministers held an emergency meeting and are set to activate a “Food Crisis Contingency Mechanism” in anticipation of the shortages resulting from the blocked 40% of global wheat exports that are no longer flowing from Ukraine/Russia.
- Korea’s animal feed producers are preparing to declare force majeur, unable to produce feed without the 300,000 metric tons they’d expected from Ukraine now stuck in the Black Sea.
Nations are banning exports to cling to what food stocks they DO have. Things are escalating quickly in the food crisis – and all of this was pre-scripted in the 2015 Food Chain Reaction Game, and we are now walking through that script.
—> Start Growing Food Now – The Grow Network has a free webinar on how to grow food in a grid down situation
Register for free at www.PowerHourFood.com
ENERGY & ENVIRONMENT
Manchin Objects to New Greenhouse Gas and Environmental Impact Policies on Natural Gas Pipelines
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s (FERC) February policy statements on interstate natural gas projects drew strong objections from Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and the two FERC commissioners on the five-person panel who voted against the statements.
Those statements, which add consideration of greenhouse gas emissions and environmental impacts, including on “environmental justice communities,” for FERC to approve natural gas infrastructure, were the subject of a March 3 hearing of the Senate Committee on Energy & Natural Resources (ENR).
While FERC had previously determined project need on the basis of contracts to ship the gas from a prospective pipeline, the first new policy statement adds factors to assess “need.” It also directs FERC to consider environmental impacts, landowner impacts, and impacts on “environmental justice communities,” among other factors.
The second statement presumes that a project emitting 100,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents has a significant impact on climate change, meaning that the project must undergo more extensive environmental review.
Manchin, who serves as ENR chair, testified that “the recent action taken by Democratic commissioners … served to elevate environmental considerations above American energy reliability, security, and independence.”
“To deny or put up barriers to natural gas projects and the benefits they provide, while Putin is actively and effectively using energy as an economic and political weapon against our allies, is just beyond the pale,” Manchin said.
ENR Ranking Member John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) said the new policies would “make it next to impossible to build any new natural gas infrastructure or upgrade our existing facilities in the United States,” noting that they were promulgated through a “purely partisan vote” that split FERC’s commissioners.
The FERC commissioners who voted for the statements said they’re intended to bring FERC in line with court rulings on the Natural Gas Act (NGA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
FERC Chair Richard Glick, who supported the statements, referred to three recent decisions by the D.C. Court of Appeals, Sabal Trail, Birckhead, and Vecinos, saying they confirmed that FERC is required to consider greenhouse gas emissions.
“To put executive branch officials in charge of deciding which cases to follow and which to disregard would be an invitation to exactly the type of unchecked executive branch authority to which my colleagues rightly object,” Glick said.
By contrast, FERC Commissioner Mark Christie, who voted against the statements, said FERC’s new statements seize upon authority that should ultimately rest in Congress.
“In our democracy, it is only you—the legislators elected by the people—who have the exclusive power to decide the major policy questions that impact the lives of tens of millions of Americans, not an unelected administrative agency,” Christie said.
FERC Commissioner Anne Clements, who voted for the policy statements, testified that “it would be indefensible” for FERC to judge need based exclusively on the existence of contracts for prospective pipeline customers.
Yet FERC Commissioner James Danly, an opponent of the statements, said the new approach to project need created uncertainty, describing it as “a vague multi-factor balancing test, in which it will exercise its judgment in place of the market’s to determine whether a project is ‘needed’ or not.”
Danly also rejected the argument that recent federal court decisions necessitated the new policy statements.
“Sabal Trail has a narrow holding and cannot credibly be described as requiring FERC’s unprecedented assertion of jurisdiction over the whole of the natural gas industry’s emissions—from upstream production to downstream consumer use,” he testified.
COVID RELATED NEWS
How to Detox Spike Protein After COVID or Vaccine
STORY AT-A-GLANCE
- If you had COVID-19 or received a COVID-19 injection, you may have dangerous spike proteins circulating in your body
- Spike proteins can circulate in your body after infection or injection, causing damage to cells, tissues and organs
- The World Council for Health has released a spike protein detox guide, which provides straightforward steps you can take to potentially lessen the effects of toxic spike protein in your body
- Spike protein inhibitors and neutralizers include pine needles, ivermectin, neem, N-acetylcysteine (NAC) and glutathione
- The top 10 spike protein detox essentials include vitamin D, vitamin C, nigella seed, quercetin, zinc, curcumin, milk thistle extract, NAC, ivermectin and magnesium
Have you had COVID-19 or received a COVID-19 injection? Then you likely have dangerous spike proteins circulating in your body. While spike protein is naturally found in SARS-CoV-2, no matter the variant, it’s also produced in your body when you receive a COVID-19 shot. In its native form in SARS-CoV-2, the spike protein is responsible for the pathologies of the viral infection.
In its wild form it’s known to open the blood-brain barrier, cause cell damage (cytotoxicity) and, as Dr. Robert Malone, the inventor of the mRNA and DNA vaccine core platform technology, said in a commentary on News Voice, “is active in manipulating the biology of the cells that coat the inside of your blood vessels—vascular endothelial cells, in part through its interaction with ACE2, which controls contraction in the blood vessels, blood pressure, and other things.”
It’s also been revealed that the spike protein on its own is enough to cause inflammation and damage to the vascular system, even independent of a virus.
Now, the World Council for Health (WCH), a worldwide coalition of health-focused organizations and civil society groups that seek to broaden public health knowledge, has released a spike protein detox guide, which provides straightforward steps you can take to potentially lessen the effects of toxic spike protein. You can view their full guide of natural remedies, including dosages, at the end of this article.
Understanding Today’s Hybrid War
In an interview with Joe Rogan, Maajid Nawaz, a former Islamist revolutionary who became an anti-extremism activist, discusses the manufacturing of consent around things that aren’t true
Nawaz believes we’re in a hybrid war where information is the primary weapon
Relativism, the idea that truth is relative and personally subjective, is dangerous because without objective truth, there’s no objective reality, and without objective reality, whoever has the power gets to dictate reality. In the end, you end up with authoritarianism
The reason why government leaders have repeatedly shifted the goal post and then played with our memories of what they promised is to disorient and confuse people to the point that they don’t have the strength to question government
Another control mechanism will be the implementation of programmable central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) — digital cash that can be programmed so that it can only be spent on goods or services that an employer or government agrees with or deems sensible
Nonstop Ringing: Can COVID-19 Lead to Tinnitus?
Tinnitus is a noise you hear in one or both ears triggered inside the auditory system; it is a symptom of an abnormality or injury and not a specific disease
Tinnitus is one symptom of long COVID and from the COVID shot. How the symptom is triggered is still being studied; the virus can infect inner ear cells and the spike protein can disrupt blood supply to the sensitive structures responsible for hearing
One study found 53% of those with mild to moderate COVID had sensorineural hearing loss, which was present in all patients who took remdesivir. Other long COVID symptoms include fatigue, memory problems, depression or anxiety, mood changes and joint pain
One of the key strategies to preventing infection and treating long-haul symptoms is to protect and support your gut microbiome. Doctors also prescribe holistic support, rest and a gradual increase in activity
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