Dec 23 (Reuters) – Frigid cold and blowing winds on Friday knocked out power and cut energy production across the United States, driving up heating and electricity prices as people prepared for holiday celebrations.
Winter Storm Elliott brought sub-freezing temperatures and extreme weather alerts to about two-thirds of the United States, with cold and snow in some areas to linger through the Christmas holiday.
More than 1.5 million homes and businesses lost power, oil refineries in Texas cut gasoline and diesel production on equipment failures, and heating and power prices surged on the losses. Oil and gas output from North Dakota to Texas suffered freeze-ins, cutting supplies.
Some 1.5 million barrels of daily refining capacity along the U.S. Gulf Coast was shut due to the bitterly cold temperatures. The production losses are not expected to last, but they have lifted fuel prices.
Knocked out were TotalEnergies (TTEF.PA), Motiva Enterprises (MOTIV.UL) and Marathon Petroleum (MPC.N) facilities outside Houston. Cold weather also disrupted Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), LyondellBasell (LYB.N) and Valero Energy (VLO.N) plants in Texas that produce gasoline, diesel and jet fuel.
Sempra Infrastructure’s Cameron LNG plant in Louisiana said weather disrupted its production of liquefied natural gas without providing details. Crews at the 12 million tonne-per-year facility were trying to restore output, it said.
Freeze-ins – in which ice crystals halt oil and gas production – this week trimmed production in North Dakota’s oilfields by 300,000 to 350,000 barrels per day, or a third of normal. In Texas’s Permian oilfield, the freeze led to more gas being withdrawn than was injected, said El Paso Natural Gas operator Kinder Morgan Inc. (KMI.N).
U.S. benchmark oil prices on Friday jumped 2.4% to $79.56, and next-day gas in west Texas jumped 22% to around $9 per million British thermal units , the highest since the state’s 2021 deep freeze.
Power prices on Texas’s grid also spiked to $3,700 per megawatt hour, prompting generators to add more power to the grid before prices fell back as thermal and solar supplies came online.
New England’s bulk power supplier said it expected to have enough to supply demand, but elsewhere strong winds led to outages largely in the Southeast and Midwest; North Carolina counted more than 187,000 without power.
“Crews are restoring power but high winds are making repairs challenging at most of the 4,600 outage locations,” Duke Energy spokesman Jeff Brooks wrote on Twitter.
Heating oil and natural gas futures rose sharply in response to the cold. U.S. heating oil futures gained 4.3% while natural gas futures rose 2.5%.
In New England, gas for Friday at the Algonquin hub soared 361% to a near 11-month high of $30 mmBtu.
About half of the power generated in New England comes from gas-fired plants, but on the coldest days, power generators shift to burn more oil. According to grid operator New England ISO, power companies’ generation mix was at 17% from oil-fired plants as of midday Friday.
Gas output dropped about 6.5 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd) over the past four days to a preliminary nine-month low of 92.4 bcfd on Friday as wells froze in Texas, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Pennsylvania and elsewhere.
That is the biggest drop in output since the February 2021 freeze knocked out power for millions in Texas.
One billion cubic feet is enough gas to supply about 5 million U.S. homes for a day.
Reporting by Erwin Seba and Scott DiSavino; additional reporting by Arathy Somasekhar and Laila Kearney; editing by Jonathan Oatis, Kirsten Donovan, Aurora Ellis and Leslie Adler
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Covers the North American power and natural gas markets.
Justice debate “independent state legislature” doctrine
Liberal justices decry threat to “checks and balances”
Conservative-dominated court to rule by end of June
WASHINGTON, Dec 7 (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority on Wednesday appeared to ready to limit judicial power to overrule voting policies crafted by state politicians but might not go as far as Republican North Carolina lawmakers want in a case the liberal justices painted as a threat to American democratic norms.
The court heard arguments in a case the state lawmakers have used to try to persuade the justices to endorse a contentious legal theory gaining traction in conservative legal circles that would prevent state courts from reviewing the legality of actions by state legislatures regulating federal elections.
The Republican lawmakers are appealing the top North Carolina court’s decision to throw out the map they devised for the state’s 14 U.S. House of Representatives districts as unlawfully biased against Democratic voters. Another state court then replaced that map with one drawn by a bipartisan group of experts.
The Supreme Court has a 6-3 conservative majority, and its most conservative justices including Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch appeared willing to embrace the “independent state legislature” doctrine presented by the Republican legislators.
While the conservative justices in general asked questions that indicated skepticism toward the state court actions, some signaled that the Republican argument that state constitutions cannot constrain the power of legislatures in setting rules for congressional and presidential elections might go too far.
Under the once-marginal legal theory they are now promoting, the lawmakers argue that the U.S. Constitution gives state legislatures – and not other entities such as state courts – authority over election rules and electoral district maps.
The court’s liberal justices suggested the doctrine could free legislatures to adopt all manner of voting restrictions. Lawyers arguing against it also said it could sow confusion by allowing voting rules that vary between state and federal contests.
“This is a proposal that gets rid of the normal checks and balances on the way big governmental decisions are made in this country,” liberal Justice Elena Kagan said, referring to the interaction between the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government. “And you might think that it gets rid of all those checks and balances at exactly the time when they are needed most.”
America is sharped divided over voting rights. Republican-led state legislatures have pursued new voting restrictions in the aftermath of Republican former President Donald Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him through widespread voting fraud.
The court’s eventual decision, due by the end of June, could apply to 2024 elections including the U.S. presidential race.
During the three-hour argument, the justices touched on the issue of enabling federal courts to review state court actions to ensure that judges do not behave like legislators or unfairly apply vague state constitutional provisions such as those requiring free and fair elections to disempower lawmakers.
Conservative Chief Justice John Roberts wondered whether such broadly worded provisions provide proper “standards and guidelines” for state courts to apply.
[1/2] A general view of the U.S. Supreme Court building in the rain the day before the start of the court’s new term in Washington, U.S. October 2, 2022. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
ALITO WEIGHS IN
Alito dismissed arguments that legislatures would be unchecked if the Republican position carried the day.
“Under any circumstances, no matter what we say the ‘Elections Clause’ means, Congress can always come in and establish the manner of conducting congressional elections,” Alito said, referring to the Constitution’s elections language.
The doctrine is based in part on the Constitution’s statement that the “times, places and manner” of federal elections “shall be prescribed in each state by the legislature thereof.” The Republican lawmakers argued that the state court usurped the North Carolina General Assembly’s authority under that provision to regulate federal elections.
Kagan said the theory would free state legislators to engage in the “most extreme forms of gerrymandering” – drawing electoral districts to unfairly improve a party’s election chances – while enacting “all manner of restrictions on voting,” noting that lawmakers by virtue of coveting re-election may have incentives to suppress, dilute and negate votes.
Kagan said the theory also could let legislatures insert themselves into the process of determining winners in federal elections – a sensitive issue following the Jan. 6, 2021, U.S. Capitol attack by Trump supporters who sought to block congressional certification of Biden’s 2020 election victory.
‘HISTORICAL PRACTICE’
Some conservative justices appeared to balk at aspects of the Republican arguments.
Justice Brett Kavanaugh emphasized the “historical practice” that “nearly all state constitutions regulate federal elections in some way.” Roberts said another check on a legislature’s power – a state governor’s veto – “significantly undermines the argument that it can do whatever it wants.”
David Thompson, arguing for the North Carolina lawmakers, said the Constitution “requires state legislatures specifically to perform the federal function of prescribing regulations for federal elections. States lack the authority to restrict the legislature’s substantive discretion when performing this federal function.”
Kavanaugh told Thompson that his position on the theory’s breadth “seems to go further” than that conceived by then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist in a concurrence to a 2000 ruling deciding a presidential election’s outcome – an opinion seeing state courts as exceeding their authority on federal elections.
North Carolina’s Department of Justice is defending the state high court’s February ruling alongside the voters and voting rights groups that challenged the map approved by the legislature in November 2021. They are backed by Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration.
Elizabeth Prelogar, arguing for Biden’s administration, said empowering state legislatures the way the Republicans want would “wreak havoc in the administration of elections across the nation” and cause federal courts to become flooded with lawsuits concerning state-administered elections.
Reporting by Andrew Chung in Washington and Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham
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Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.
Arguments set for Monday; ruling due by end of June
Oct 27 (Reuters) – When the U.S. Supreme Court next week considers ending policies used by many colleges and universities to increase their numbers of Black and Hispanic students, a conservative activist will be on hand to watch this fateful moment in his long quest to erase racial preferences intended to boost diversity in American life.
The challenges to race-conscious admissions policies used by Harvard University and the University of North Carolina were brought by a group called Students for Fair Admissions founded and headed by Edward Blum, a 70-year-old former stockbroker and unsuccessful Republican congressional candidate.
The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear arguments in the two cases on Monday, with rulings due by the end of June. The litigation gives its 6-3 conservative majority another chance to issue blockbuster decisions after rulings four months ago overturning abortion rights and expanding gun rights.
The conservative justices – Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett – are expected to be receptive to arguments Blum has honed against affirmative action policies, crafted as a remedy to discrimination. As such, Blum may be on the verge of a huge legal victory as he fights race-based policies not only in higher education but in areas such as elections and diversity in corporate America.
“I’m a one-trick pony,” Blum said in an interview. “I hope and care about ending these racial classifications and preferences in our public policy.”
Blum, who is white, has cast his mission as one aimed at creating a colorblind society.
“An individual’s race or ethnicity should not be used to help them or harm them in their life’s endeavors,” Blum said.
His critics paint his work as a war on racial equity aimed at undercutting policies designed to help non-white Americans overcome racial obstacles persisting in U.S. life.
“He’s made it harder for corporations, boards and governments to make racial diversity an explicit goal,” said Kristin Penner, a co-founder of a group called the Coalition for a Diverse Harvard that supports affirmative action. “And thus people of color continue to be blocked out of positions of power.”
Blum’s goal is for the Supreme Court to overturn its own precedents allowing race as a factor in admissions.
Blum lost in a previous case challenging race-conscious student admissions when the court ruled 4-3 in 2016 against a white woman he recruited as a plaintiff suing the University of Texas after being denied admission. Conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy provided the crucial vote. The court has moved rightward since then. Kennedy himself retired in 2018.
With Monday’s arguments, the court will have taken up eight race-related cases engineered by Blum. For instance, a Blum-backed challenge led to a 2013 Supreme Court ruling gutting a central part of the 1965 Voting Rights Act that had forced nine states, mainly in the South, to obtain federal approval for voting rules changes affecting Black and other minority voters.
In addition, Blum last year launched a group called the Alliance For Fair Board Recruitment and filed lawsuits challenging Nasdaq rules and California laws mandating gender and racial diversity on corporate boards.
A 1978 LANDMARK
From his home in South Thomaston, Maine, Blum has orchestrated a 14-year legal campaign to challenge affirmative action in college and university admissions.
The Supreme Court first upheld such affirmative action in a landmark 1978 ruling in a case called Regents of the University of California v. Bakke, holding that race could be considered as one of several factors, along with academic and extracurricular criteria, but racial quotas were prohibited. The court reaffirmed that stance in 2003.
Blum in 2008 recruited Abigail Fisher, the daughter of an old friend, and through his first group, the Project for Fair Representation, helped fund her University of Texas suit that yielded the 2016 ruling he called a “grave disappointment.”
By then, Blum had shifted gears to the next generation of cases, forming Students for Fair Admissions in 2014 and turning his attention to Harvard and UNC. Those lawsuits accused UNC of discriminating against white and Asian American applicants and Harvard of discriminating against Asian Americans.
Boston University School of Law professor Jonathan Feingold said Blum was “transparent” in saying he needed Asian American plaintiffs this time around to sue the universities, allowing him to “spin a narrative that affirmative action is pitting students of color against one another.”
Blum raised more than $8 million from 2015 to 2020 for Students for Fair Admissions, most going to covering legal fees. Big checks came from conservative supporters including DonorsTrust and Searle Freedom Trust. Blum said 5,000 smaller donors also contributed.
Students for Fair Admissions has said it boasts 20,000 members. Its critics said it is not a true membership association at all. No Students for Fair Admissions members served as plaintiffs or testified in court in the Harvard and UNC cases as the group lost in lower courts. The Supreme Court in January agreed to hear appeals backed by Blum in both cases.
The Harvard lawsuit accused the university of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which bars discrimination based on race, color or national origin under any program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.
The UNC lawsuit accused that university of violating the U.S. Constitution’s 14th Amendment guarantee of equal protection under the law. Blum and his supporters argue that the 14th Amendment bars government entities including public universities like UNC from treating people differently due to race.
“His efforts and broader project are paying off because now because you have a court that is very receptive to the specific arguments that are being made here,” Feingold said.
For Blum, potential victories over Harvard and UNC may not be the final word in the fight against racial preferences in student admissions.
“It might be the beginning of the end,” Blum said. “More likely, it’s probably the end of the beginning.”
Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Will Dunham
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Nate Raymond reports on the federal judiciary and litigation. He can be reached at nate.raymond@thomsonreuters.com.
A woman wears a t-shirt falsely claiming that former U.S. President Donald Trump won the 2020 election, after a presentation to the Surry County board of commissioners by several individuals that aimed to cast doubt on election integrity, urging the commission to replace existing voting machines with purely paper ballots, in Dobson, North Carolina, U.S., May 16, 2022. REUTERS/Jonathan Drake
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PHILADELPHIA, May 17 (Reuters) – Voters in Pennsylvania and North Carolina will pick nominees in critical U.S. Senate and gubernatorial contests on Tuesday that provide another test of former President Donald Trump’s sway with Republican voters ahead of November’s midterm elections.
Idaho’s incumbent Republican governor also faces a Trump-backed primary rival, while Trump ally Madison Cawthorn, a first-term Republican congressman who has generated numerous controversies, hopes to fend off a primary challenge in North Carolina. read more
President Joe Biden’s fellow Democrats are fighting to retain their slim majorities in the House of Representatives and Senate in the Nov. 8 congressional elections. Democrats in Pennsylvania and North Carolina are trying to win Senate seats currently held by Republicans.
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The Pennsylvania Republican senatorial primary has turned into an unpredictable three-way battle in its final days after conservative political commentator Kathy Barnette surged into contention against two better-funded rivals: Trump-endorsed TV wellness celebrity Mehmet Oz and former hedge fund chief executive David McCormick.
Barnette’s rise has worried some establishment Republicans concerned that the right-wing activist could prove too conservative for general election voters choosing a successor to retiring Senator Pat Toomey.
A weekend opinion poll by the Trafalgar Group, a Republican firm, showed Oz leading Barnette 28.5% to 26.8%, within the margin of error, with McCormick trailing at 21.6%.
In the Democratic primary, progressive Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, who is finishing his primary campaign from a hospital after suffering a stroke last week, faces centrist U.S. Representative Conor Lamb.
Final results may not be known tonight. State officials said voters had requested 908,000 absentee or mail ballots, and state law prevents them from being processed until election day.
In North Carolina, Trump-endorsed congressman Ted Budd leads former Governor Pat McCrory as they vie to succeed retiring Senator Richard Burr. Cheri Beasley, the first Black woman to serve as chief justice of North Carolina’s Supreme Court, is expected to win the Democratic nomination.
More than 580,000 voters had already cast their ballots in person or by mail, nearly twice as many as four years ago, according to figures provided by the state Board of Elections. Those voters returned slightly more Democratic than Republican ballots.
Trump has endorsed more than 150 candidates as he tries to solidify his status as his party’s kingmaker, though his picks have not always prevailed. His support helped author J.D. Vance win the Ohio Senate primary, but his favored candidate lost in Nebraska’s gubernatorial race last week. read more
Republicans are well positioned to regain control of the House, which could enable them to frustrate Biden’s legislative agenda. Democrats have a better chance of keeping control of the Senate, currently split 50-50 between the parties with Vice President Kamala Harris holding the tie-breaking vote. read more
HEALTH SCARE
The 6-foot-8-inch (2.03 m) tattooed and goateed Fetterman, who has a penchant for hoodies and liberal stances, has proven to be an adept fundraiser and a social media force. On Tuesday, his campaign released a photo showing him voting an absentee ballot from the hospital. read more
His health scare has added a new wrinkle to the Pennsylvania race. Fetterman revealed on Sunday he had suffered a stroke two days earlier. He said he was recovering and had not sustained cognitive damage. read more
Polls show Fetterman leading Lamb, whose moderate politics make him a better general election candidate in the view of many party insiders.
Barnette, seeking to become Pennsylvania’s first Black U.S. senator, has called her rivals insufficiently conservative. She was photographed, according to news reports, marching toward the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, alongside members of the far-right Proud Boys group shortly before a mob of Trump supporters stormed the building in a failed bid to overturn his 2020 election loss.
Barnette’s campaign in a statement to NBC said she did not take part in or condone the destruction of property and has no connection to the Proud Boys.
Trump last week endorsed state Senator Doug Mastriano, who is leading the polls in Pennsylvania’s Republican gubernatorial primary and was present outside the Capitol on the day of the riot.
Mastriano has also said he would pursue a statewide abortion ban. Abortion has become a flashpoint issue in the race since a leaked draft opinion showed the Supreme Court is poised to overturn Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision legalizing abortion nationwide.
Some Pennsylvania Republicans view Mastriano, like Barnette, as too extreme to win a general election.
State Attorney General Josh Shapiro, the front-runner in the Democratic primary, has vowed to protect abortion rights. Shapiro said on Tuesday that he was isolating at home after testing positive for COVID-19.
In North Carolina, Cawthorn, at 26 the House’s youngest member, faces a challenge from Republican state Senator Chuck Edwards. Cawthorn has turned some in his own party against him with a string of embarrassing episodes, including a claim that legislative leaders invited him to a cocaine-fueled orgy, two attempts to bring a gun onto a plane, and a old video that appeared to show a naked Cawthorn gyrating against someone.
In Idaho, incumbent Republican Governor Brad Little faces Trump-backed primary challenger Janice McGeachin, the state’s lieutenant governor.
Primary elections also take place in Kentucky and Oregon.
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Reporting by Jarrett Renshaw in Philadelphia, Joseph Ax in New York and Andy Sullivan in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone, Will Dunham and Rosalba O’Brien
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CHICAGO, April 6 (Reuters) – For nearly two decades, Abe Sandquist has used every marketing tool he can think of to sell the back end of a cow. Poop, after all, needs to go somewhere. The Midwestern entrepreneur has worked hard to woo farmers on its benefits for their crops.
Now, facing a global shortage of commercial fertilizers made worse by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, more U.S. growers are knocking on his door. Sandquist says they’re clamoring to get their hands on something Old MacDonald would swear by: old-fashioned animal manure. read more
“I wish we had more to sell,” said Sandquist, founder of Natural Fertilizer Services Inc, a nutrient management firm based in the U.S. state of Iowa. “But there’s not enough to meet the demand.”
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Some livestock and dairy farmers, including those who previously paid to have their animals’ waste removed, have found a fertile side business selling it to grain growers. Equipment firms that make manure spreading equipment known as “honeywagons” are also benefiting.
Not only are more U.S. farmers hunting manure supplies for this spring planting season, some cattle feeders that sell waste are sold out through the end of the year, according to industry consultant Allen Kampschnieder.
“Manure is absolutely a hot commodity,” said Kampschnieder, who works for Nebraska-based Nutrient Advisors. “We’ve got waiting lists.”
Sky-high prices for industrial fertilizer are projected to reduce American farmers’ corn and wheat plantings this spring, according to U.S. government data. That further threatens global food supplies as domestic wheat inventories are the lowest in 14 years, and the Russia-Ukraine war is disrupting grain shipments from those key suppliers. read more
While manure can replace some of the nutrient shortfall, it’s no panacea, agriculture specialists say. There’s not enough supply to swap out all the commercial fertilizer used in the United States. Transporting it is expensive. And prices for animal waste, too, are rising on strong demand.
It’s also highly regulated by state and federal authorities, in part due to concerns about impacts on water systems.
Manure can cause serious problems if it contaminates nearby streams, lakes and groundwater, said Chris Jones, a research engineer and water quality expert at the University of Iowa.
Livestock farmers say it’s a heavy lift to meet all the government rules and track how manure is applied.
RACE FOR WASTE
Regardless of the drawbacks, demand is booming.
In Wisconsin, three dairy farmers told Reuters they turned down requests to buy their manure sent via text and Twitter messages.
North Carolina-based Phinite, which makes manure-drying systems, says it’s fielding solicitations from growers as far away as Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa and Indiana.
Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, has noticed the shift at the U.S. hog farms that supply its slaughterhouses.
“We’re definitely seeing farmers move toward manure with the increase in fertilizer prices,” said Jim Monroe, a spokesperson for the company, which is owned by Hong Kong-listed WH Group Ltd (0288.HK).
Industrial fertilizers such as nitrogen require a lot of energy to produce. Prices started to surge last year amid rising demand and lower supply as record natural gas and coal prices triggered output cuts by fertilizer manufacturers. Extreme weather and COVID-19 outbreaks also roiled global supply chains. read more
War in Ukraine has made the situation worse by reducing fertilizer exports from Russia and its ally Belarus due to Western sanctions and shipping snags. That threatens to shrink harvests around the world at a time of record food inflation. Combined, Russia and Belarus accounted for more than 40% of global exports of potash last year, one of three critical nutrients used to boost crop yields, according to Dutch lender Rabobank.
As of March, commercial fertilizer prices reached a record high, with nitrogen fertilizer jumping four-fold since 2020 and phosphate and potash up three-fold, said London-based consultancy CRU Group.
One person left bereft is Dale Cramer, who grows corn, soybeans and wheat on about 6,000 acres in Cambridge, Nebraska. Searching for alternatives, he has sniffed around feedlots for manure since last August with no luck.
“A lot of people have put their names in for the same thing,” Cramer said.
HONEYWAGON SCRAMBLE
With demand for manure surging, prices have followed, delivering an unexpected windfall to livestock producers and cattle feedlots.
Prices for good-quality solid manure in Nebraska alone have reached $11 to $14 per ton, up from a typical price of $5 to $8 per ton, consultant Kampschnieder said. A dry winter helped drive up prices by leaving manure with less water in it, making it more concentrated, and thus more valuable, he said.
Iowa farmer Pat Reisinger is relieved he has dung from the pigs and dairy cows he raises to fertilize the corn, soybeans and hay he grows to feed those animals. He sold a little manure to one neighbor and is getting phone calls from others in need.
“If I sold any more, I’d have to turn around and buy commercial fertilizer, which makes no sense,” Reisinger said.
The boom has also has lifted machinery companies that make spreading equipment for solid manure as well as so-called honeywagons: wheeled tanks hitched to trucks and tractors for transporting and applying liquefied waste.
In Canada, Husky Farm Equipment Ltd is sold out of honeywagons. The company built its first contraption back in 1960 as a way to make collecting and spreading manure more efficient, according to President Walter Grose. Today Grose sells directly to farmers and machinery dealerships, and he can’t keep up.
“We have people looking for equipment right away and we’re sold out for six months,” said Grose who sells honeywagons in several sizes. Bigger tanks come with a $70,000 average price tag.
CNH Industrial , the American-Italian farm and construction equipment giant, said it has seen strong demand for its New Holland brand box spreaders – essentially, a steel box that attaches to a tractor to haul and spread solid manure.
Kansas equipment dealership KanEquip Inc is sold out of New Holland spreaders, even though prices have jumped 10% from the normal list price of $30,000, said regional manager Bryndon Meinhardt. He said the dealership has ordered 10 more to meet demand.
NO POOP FOR YOU
Even in states where large livestock herds generate massive quantities of manure, there’s not enough to replace commercial fertilizer completely. Iowa, the top U.S. producer of pork and corn, already applies all of its manure on land covering about 25% of its corn acres each year, said Dan Andersen, an associate professor at Iowa State University who specializes in manure management.
On average, Iowa uses about 14 billion gallons of manure annually, said Andersen, known as @DrManure on Twitter. He expects Iowa growers may suck out an extra billion gallons this year from storage in tanks on farms to substitute pricey commercial fertilizer.
Part of the current supply problem is rooted in the evolution of the U.S. farm economy. As America’s livestock sector has consolidated, there are geographical hubs where animals are raised for eggs, milk or meat, and where the most manure is produced. As a result, some places have too little, while others have too much and have wrestled with ways to dispose of it.
Last October, Pennsylvania dairyman Brett Reinford thought he might be tight on manure storage space over the winter. So he made an offer to local farmers: You come and haul it away, you can have it for free. He got no takers.
Fast forward six months and Reinford is now sitting on liquid gold. “We’re keeping it all and I wish we had more,” he said.
Manure could become even more precious later this year, as U.S. livestock herds and poultry flocks shrink.
The number of hogs in the United States has dropped to its lowest level in about five years, as producers grapple with swine diseases and rising costs for feed and other inputs. Bird flu, meanwhile, has wiped out more than 22 million chickens and turkeys on commercial U.S. farms since February.
But even hard-hit poultry farmers could have something to use: Their dead birds can be composted and applied as fertilizer, according to the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.
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Reporting By P.J. Huffstutter and Tom Polansek in Chicago, and Bianca Flowers in Chicago and New York. Additional reporting by Leah Douglas in Washington, D.C.; Editing by Caroline Stauffer and Marla Dickerson
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HANOI/SAN FRANCISCO, March 29 (Reuters) – Vietnam’s automaker VinFast said on Tuesday it has signed a preliminary deal to initially invest $2 billion to build a factory in North Carolinato make electric buses, sport utility vehicles (SUVs) along with batteries for EVs.
The unit of Vietnam’s biggest conglomerate Vingroup (VIC.HM), said it plans to have a total investment of $4 billion in its first U.S. factory complex.
Construction should begin this year as soon as the company gets necessary permits, and is expected to finish by July 2024. The plant’s initial capacity will be 150,000 units per year, Vinfast said.
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“With a manufacturing facility right in the U.S. market, VinFast can stabilize prices and shorten product delivery time, making our EVs more accessible to customers,” said Nguyen Thi Thu Thuy, Vingroup vice chair and VinFast Global CEO.
VinFast has begun taking pre-orders globally for two electric SUVs with a goal to begin delivering them in the fourth quarter.
U.S. President Joe Biden said the VinFast investment, which will create more than 7,000 jobs, is “the latest example of my economic strategy at work.”
“It builds on recent announcements from companies like GM, Ford, and Siemens to invest in America again and create jobs, said Biden, who set an ambitious goal for half of new car sales to be electric by 2030.
This will be North Carolina’s first car plant and it is the largest economic development announcement in the state’s history, the governor’s office said in a statement.
VinFast said prices for its VF8 sport SUV started from $41,000 in the United States. By comparison, a Tesla SUV sells for around $63,000. VinFast is targeting global electric vehicle sales of 42,000 this year.
PRODUCTION IS HARD
VinFast is betting big on the U.S. market, where it hopes to compete with legacy automakers and startups with affordable electric SUVs and a battery leasing model.
Other electric vehicle startups like Rivian and Lucid have slashed their production targets this year due to supply chain disruptions caused by coronavirus, which hit their share prices. read more
Tesla CEO Elon Musk said last year, “It’s insanely difficult to reach volume production at affordable unit cost.”
VinFast, which became Vietnam’s first fully fledged domestic car manufacturer in 2019, plans to transition to all-electric vehicle production from late 2022.
Outside of North America, the company is looking for a plant in Germany, it said in January.
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Reporting by Phuong Nguyen in Vietnam and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and David Gregorio
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WASHINGTON, Jan 16 (Reuters) – A major winter storm slammed much of the eastern United States with snow, ice and high winds on Sunday, causing widespread travel disruptions and power outages on a holiday weekend.
Winter weather alerts stretched more than 1,000 miles (1,609 km) from Alabama to Maine, with the governors of Georgia, Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina all declaring emergencies due to the storm.
More than 200,000 homes and businesses in North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia reported power outages, according to PowerOutage.US, a website tracking power outages.
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In North Carolina, where some regions saw record snowfalls, two people died Sunday when they lost control of their car in Raleigh.
The highest snowfall totals were expected along the spine of the Appalachians as well as across the lower Great Lakes.
The storm made its way through the Mid-Atlantic region toward New England on Sunday night, bringing snow that is expected to change to ice, sleet and eventually rain, the National Weather Service said.
In Canada, the storm is forecast to dump between 20-40cm (8-16 inches) of snow through Monday morning over parts of southern and eastern Ontario, the Canadian province that shares part of its border with New York state, the government weather agency, Environment Canada, said.
The inclement weather hits just as Ontario schools were set to reopen for in-person classes on Monday after the winter break was extended because of the highly contagious Omicron coronavirus variant.
An American Airlines airplane is seen at John F. Kennedy International Airport during the spread of the Omicron coronavirus variant in Queens, New York City, U.S., December 26, 2021. REUTERS/Jeenah Moon
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More than 3,000 flights within, into or out of the United States were canceled on Sunday, and over 8,000 flights were delayed, according to FlightAware data.
American Airlines Group Inc (AAL.O)saw more than 660 flight cancellations. More than 90% of the flights into and out of Charlotte Douglas International Airport in North Carolina, an American Airlines hub, were canceled, the FlightAware website showed.
American Airlines said it is allowing customers affected by the weather to rebook flights without a fee.
Toronto, home of Canada’s busiest airport, is set to see accumulations of 15 to 20cm of snow.
This was a long weekend for most people in the United States as Monday is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a federal holiday.
Georgia Governor Brian Kemp said on Sunday people should avoid non-essential travel in areas impacted by the storm.
“If you’re able tonight and tomorrow morning, stay home and off the roads,” Kemp said onTwitter. “It’s going to be treacherous in a lot of parts of our state.”
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Reporting by Jan Wolfe in Washington and Kanishka Singh in Bengaluru; Additional reporting by Steve Gorman and Dan Whitcomb in Los Angeles; Editing by Lisa Shumaker, Kieran Murray and Karishma Singh
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Aug 23 (Reuters) – At least six U.S. states, including Georgia, did not fully sign on to a proposed $26 billion settlement with three drug distributors and Johnson & Johnson (JNJ.N), which have been accused of fueling the nation’s opioid epidemic, according to the states’ attorneys general.
States had until Saturday to decide whether to support the $21 billion proposed settlement with McKesson Corp (MCK.N), AmerisourceBergen Corp (ABC.N) and Cardinal Health Inc (CAH.N) and a separate $5 billion agreement with J&J.
But in a sign that talks were continuing despite the passing of the deadline, Georgia – the most populous hold-out state – on Monday indicated it could wind up backing the agreement.
“We have not rejected the deal, but we have not joined because at the present time joining the national settlements does not guarantee the best outcome for Georgia and its counties, cities and citizens,” said an emailed statement from the office of the attorney general, Christopher Carr. “We remain active in representing Georgia throughout negotiations, and we’re going to continue to get input from Georgia stakeholders.”
The state will litigate its claims if needed, the statement said.
New Mexico, Oklahoma, Washington and West Virginia also declined to join the deals, their state attorneys general said. New Hampshire agreed to the settlement with distributors but not the J&J agreement.
The complex settlement formula envisions at least 44 states participating, but ultimately the companies get to decide whether a “critical mass” has joined and whether to finalize the deal.
The size of the settlement is based on the number of participating states. Those that decline to join will instead seek a larger recovery by continuing to fight the defendants in the courts. The companies have already paid hundreds of millions in verdicts and other settlements.
The deal, which was unveiled by 14 state attorneys general on July 21, aims to resolve more than 3,000 lawsuits accusing the distributors of ignoring red flags that pain pills were being diverted into communities for illicit uses and that J&J played down the risks of opioid addiction.
The money would go toward funding treatment and other services.
The companies deny wrongdoing, saying the drugs were approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and that responsibility for ballooning painkiller sales lies with others, including doctors and regulators.
McKesson said the companies have until Sept. 4 to determine if there is sufficient support for the agreements and said that process is ongoing. Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen declined to comment and J&J did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The support of two other states, Nevada and Alabama, also appeared to be in doubt, according to sources familiar with the situation.
Nevada’s attorney general declined to comment and the Alabama attorney general did not respond to a request for comment.
The participation of states is tied closely to that of their local governments, which brought the majority of the lawsuits. Cities and counties within participating states would have through Jan. 2 to sign on. Ultimately, $10.7 billion of the settlement money is tied to the extent to which localities participate.
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, a lead negotiator, last month said he expected “well north” of 40 states to join.
Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston and Tom Hals in Wilmington, Delaware;
Editing by Noeleen Walder and Karishma Singh
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.