Current or modern politics in the United States

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Trump Names Price For Avoiding All Environment Regulations: $1 Billion Or More
HuffPost

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...0d8fca8e&ei=23

President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday he planned to expedite federal regulatory approvals, including all environmental permits, for any company or individual proposing to invest $1 billion or more in a construction project.

“Any person or company investing ONE BILLION DOLLARS, OR MORE, in the United States of America, will receive fully expedited approvals and permits, including, but in no way limited to, all Environmental approvals,” Trump wrote Tuesday afternoon on Truth Social. “GET READY TO ROCK!!!”

The announcement on Trump’s own social network comes as lawmakers in Congress are working to pass a bipartisan bill aimed at easing federal permitting requirements, a step widely seen as necessary to hasten building of upgrades in roads, bridges and energy systems as aging infrastructure heaves under pressure from increasingly extreme weather and a growing population.

During the first half of his term, President Joe Biden signed into law three landmark bills aimed at modernizing U.S. infrastructure. That includes the hundreds of billions of dollars earmarked in the Inflation Reduction Act for clean energy projects, marking arguably the largest government investment into meeting demand for fossil fuels with lower-carbon alternatives outside of China.

But the federal permitting process that developed in the 55 years since the passage of the National Environmental Policy Act slowed the deployment of those dollars as opponents of anything from a solar farm to a lithium mine to a natural gas pipeline seized on the country’s bedroom ecological-protection law to halt or delay projects with lawsuits.

Obtaining final environmental permits for a project subject to the NEPA process takes on average 4 1/2 years, according to a 2020 study by the White House Council on Environmental Quality. The average for electrical transmission projects is even higher, with the majority taking 6 1/2 years to get final approvals.

Since the cheapest technologies to generate zero-carbon renewable electricity ― such as wind turbines and solar panels ― require vast areas of land often far from the cities where power is used, transmission lines are seen as one of the main bottlenecks to bringing more clean power onto the grid.

The bipartisan deal brokered by Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) sought to ease the process. But some environmental groups came out against what they called the “dirty deal” because the legislation benefited fossil fuel companies as well as clean-energy projects.

Progressive critics of the permitting overhaul argued instead for increasing staffing and budgets at federal agencies to add more capacity to assess and make judgments on applications. But some of the Democrats’ most prominent self-described climate hawks in Congress backed the bill Manchin negotiated, citing repeated analyses showing that the permitting reform package promised to slash more planet-heating emissions on net by helping clean-energy projects reach the finish line than it contributed by clearing the way for more gas infrastructure.

Unless Congress manages to pass the bill in the coming weeks, the GOP majorities set to control both the Senate and the House of Representatives are unlikely to enact the compromise package. It’s unclear, however, what Republicans may propose as an alternative. While some top GOP leaders have vowed to gut the Inflation Reduction Act, others have pleaded with colleagues to preserve much of the clean-energy spending, which has overwhelmingly gone to red and purple states.

The changes to energy policy come as the U.S. is experiencing its first major uptick in demand for electricity in three decades thanks to the need for more data centers to power artificial intelligence software, more air conditioners to keep Americans cool amid worsening heat waves, and record purchases of electric vehicles.

At the same time, the U.S. power grid is becoming less reliable and more expensive as dependable coal and nuclear plants shut down in favor of gas and renewables that, while cheap individually, have driven up electricity costs in many markets where the two sectors combined make up the majority of power generation.

Trump pledged on the campaign trail to slash electricity prices, and drive up U.S. oil and gas production up beyond the record levels set under Biden.

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‘Even The Slogan Is The Same’: McConnell Warns Trump’s Isolationism Is Reminiscent of Pre-World War Two Dangers
Mediaite

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/polit...257e72c2&ei=44

Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), the longest-serving party leader in U.S. Senate history, spoke to the Financial Times this week about his plans for his last two years in office as a rank-and-file senator, now that he is officially out of leadership.

FT’s Alex Rogers met with McConnell on Capitol Hill and wrote about the longtime Washington powerbroker’s final act. “At the age of 82, McConnell is “ready to do something else”. A pivotal politician in a tumultuous time, McConnell earned power and used it to shift the country to the right during his 17-year tenure. He won races across the country, raised more than $1bn to boost his colleagues and negotiated trillion-dollar-plus bills, including the aid that lifted the country out of the pandemic,” began Rogers, detailing some of McConnell’s accomplishments.

The conversation inevitably turned to President-elect Donald Trump, who views McConnell as an arch-nemesis and regularly targets him with his unique brand of vitriolic attacks.

McConnell has become an outspoken critic of Trump’s more isolationist policies and the MAGA wing of the GOP that pushes to cut foreign aid, particularly aid to Ukraine in its battle against invading Russian forces.

“We’re in a very, very dangerous world right now, reminiscent of before World War Two,” McConnell told Rogers, adding, “Even the slogan is the same. ‘America First.’ That was what they said in the ’30s.” Rogers reported further on their exchange:

Warming to his historical theme, McConnell turns to one of the portraits behind him, an influential Senate Republican of the wartime era named Robert A Taft. Son of the 27th president William Howard Taft, Robert was “a raging isolationist” who opposed Lend-Lease before the second world war and both the creation of Nato and the Marshall Plan afterwards, says McConnell.

“Thank goodness Eisenhower beat him for the [presidential] nomination in ’52 and had a much different view of America’s role in the world,” McConnell added. “The cost of deterrence is considerably less than the cost of war.” Rogers added of their conversation:

His words are targeted directly at Trump and vice-president-elect JD Vance, who have argued that the US should not be spending any more money on Ukraine. McConnell is a strong believer in the Ronald Reagan view of the US role in the world, rather than the Trump one.

“To most American voters, I think the simple answer is, ‘Let’s stay out of it.’ That was the argument made in the ’30s and that just won’t work. Thanks to Reagan, we know what does work — not just saying peace through strength, but demonstrating it.”

McConnell also took issue with Trump’s regular claim that there are Americans, he calls them the “enemy within,” who are more dangerous to the U.S. than Russia and China. “I don’t agree with that,” said McConnell.

McConnell, who saved Trump during his second impeachment after the Jan. 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol, has become one of Trump’s fiercest critics on the right – despite endorsing him in 2024. McConnell told AP’s Michael Tackett for his recent biography that he believed Trump was responsible for the attack on the Capitol. “I’m not at all conflicted about whether what the president did is an impeachable offense,” McConnell said, adding, “I think in his urging insurrection and people attacking the Capitol as a direct result is about as close to an impeachable offense as you can imagine, with the possible exception of maybe being an agent for another country.”

Tackett’s book, titled “The Price of Power,” also quoted McConnell tearing into Trump’s character calling him “stupid” and a “despicable human being.”