Category Archives: Industry Jobs Oil Economics

Putin Officially Stakes Exclusive Claim to the Artic

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Without even so much as a whimper from anyone in Washington DC, Putin made his final submission to the United Nations in writing claiming expanded sovereignty of Russia for the Artic.

This was tried before by Russia and it was denied in 2001.

The question is why is the United Nations the final approval authority for such a claim under which the matter is governed by the Law of the Seas?

Obama’s feeble position on the Artic

In May 2013, President Obama published the National Strategy for the Arctic Region, defining the desired end state as an Arctic Region stable and free of conflict, where nations act responsibly in a spirit of trust and cooperation, and where economic and energy resources are developed in a sustainable manner. In November 2013, the Secretary of Defense published the Department of Defense Arctic Strategy, identifying two supporting objectives to the National Strategy:

• Ensure security, support safety, and promote defense cooperation;
• Prepare for a wide range of challenges and contingencies.

In support of National and Department of Defense aims, the Navy will pursue the following strategic objectives:

• Ensure United States Arctic sovereignty and provide homeland defense;
• Provide ready naval forces to respond to crisis and contingencies;
• Preserve freedom of the seas; and
• Promote partnerships within the United States Government and with international allies and partners.

Full detail here.

Russia’s Application Summary to the United Nations

INTRODUCTION

The Russian Federation signed 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (“Convention”) on 10 December 1982 (then the USSR) and ratified it on 26 February 1997. The Convention entered into force for the Russian Federation on 11 April 1997. In accordance with Article 77 of the Convention, the Russian Federation proceeds from the fact that the rights of the coastal state over the continental shelf exist ipso facto and ab initio.

This Submission of the Russian Federation, which is made on the basis of Article 76.8 of the Convention, is a partial revised submission and covers the part of the Arctic Ocean region. The area under consideration was included in the first Submission of the Russian Federation (made on 10 December 2001) in respect of the extended continental shelf, which was considered at the 11th session of the Commission from 24 to 28 June 2002.

Recommendations relating to the Arctic Ocean adopted at that session of the Commission (L. Recommendations / D. Summary of recommendations. Central Arctic Ocean) say: 154/166. The Commission recommends that the Russian Federation make a revised submission in respect

of its extended continental shelf in the Central Arctic Ocean based on the findings contained in these recommendations.

155/167. The Commission recommends that the Russian Federation follow the scientific and technical advice contained in its Scientific and Technical Guidelines, and as indicated in the various sections of these Recommendations of the Commission.

156/168. The Commission recommends that according to the materials provided in the submission the Lomonosov Ridge cannot be considered a submarine elevation under the Convention.

157/169. The Commission recommends that, according to the current state of scientific knowledge, the Alpha-Mendeleev Ridge Complex cannot be considered a submarine elevation under the Convention.

Guided by the provisions of the Rules of Procedure and the STG, and also taking into account the practice of the Commission, the Russian Federation reserves the right to introduce amendments and additions to this partial revised Submission that can be based on new or additional research data and may provide changes to the presented OLCS line of the Russian Federation.

1. EXTENDED CONTINENTAL SHELF OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN

This partial revised Submission of the Russian Federation for establishment of the OLCS in the Arctic Ocean is made to include in the extended continental shelf of the Russian Federation, in accordance with article 76 of the Convention, the seabed and its subsoil in the central Arctic Ocean which is natural prolongation of the Russian land territory.

The basis for the extension of rights to the extended continental shelf in the Arctic Ocean is the identity of the submitted areas to the continental shelf, as well as the OLCS position under Article 76 of the Convention at a distance of more than 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured. In the case of the Russian Federation, this distance coincides with the boundary of the Russian exclusive economic zone. Paragraph 1 of Article 3 of the Federal Act “On the Exclusive Economic Zone of the Russian Federation”(No. 191, dated December 17, 1998) states that:

PARTIAL REVISED SUBMISSION OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION TO THE COMMISSION ON THE LIMITS OF THE CONTINENTAL SHELF IN RESPECT OF THE CONTINENTAL SHELF OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERATION IN THE ARCTIC OCEAN

The outer limit of the exclusive economic zone is established at a distance of 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured, unless otherwise is stipulated by the international treaties of the Russian Federation.

Requirements of Paragraph 1 of Article 75 of the Convention provide that:

Subject to this Part, the outer limit lines of the exclusive economic zone and the lines of delimitation drawn in accordance with article 74 shall be shown on charts of a scale or scales adequate for ascertaining their position. Where appropriate, such limit lines or delimitation lines may be substituted by a list of geographical coordinates of points, specifying the geodetic datum.

The line of the Russian exclusive economic zone is shown on the chart of Central Arctic Basin (admiralty No. 91115), publication of the Department of Navigation and Oceanography of the Russian Ministry of Defense in 2014.

The list of straight baseline points was approved by Decree of the USSR Council of Ministers of 15 January 1985 and published in the book “Maritime Legislation of the Russian Federation” (1994) by the Main Department of Navigation and Oceanography (admiralty No. 9055). An English translation of the said list has been officially handed over to the UN Secretary General and placed on the UN website (see List of straight baseline points 4450 “RUS_1985_Declaration”).

The List contains coordinates of the straight baseline endpoints. The position of the normal baselines adjoining the straight baselines in this document is recorded with the text: “onwards along the low-water line up to the base point …. No.”.

The area of the seabed of the Arctic ocean (Fig. 1), considered in this revised partial submission and relevant to the OLCS determination of the Russian Federation under article 76 of the Convention, covers the geomorphological continental shelf of the Russian Arctic marginal seas, part of the Eurasian basin (Nansen basin and Amundsen, the Gakkel ridgeThe Arctic Ocean seabed area considered in this partial revised Submission that for establishment of the OLCS of the Russian Federation under Article 76 of the Convention includes the geomorphological shelf of the Russian Arctic marginal seas, part of the Eurasian Basin (the Nansen, Amundsen basins and the Gakkel Ridge), and the Central Amerasian Basin consisting of the Makarov Basin and Complex of the Central Arctic Submarine Elevations, which includes the Lomonosov Ridge, Podvodnikov Basin, Mendeleev-Alpha Rise, Mendeleev and Chukchi basins, and Chukchi Plateau.

Partial revised Submission of the Russian Federation on the establishment of the OLCS in the Arctic Ocean proceeds from the scientific understanding that the constituent parts of the Complex of the Central Arctic Submarine Elevations, namely the Lomonosov Ridge, Mendeleev-Alpha Rise, and Chukchi Plateau, and separating them the Podvodnikov and Chukchi Basins have the continental origin and belong to submarine elevations that are natural components of the continental margin under paragraph 6 of Article 76 of the Convention, which are not subject to distance limit of 350 nautical miles from the baselines.

The submitted OLCS line under Article 76 of the Convention in accordance with this partial revised Submission is shown on the schematic map included in the Executive Summary (Fig. 1). A more detailed description of the claimed OLCS is given below in the corresponding section of the Executive Summary.

In accordance with Paragraphs 3.2.1 and 3.2.3 of the STG, all distances in the partial revised Submission of the Russian Federation for establishment of the OLCS in the Arctic Ocean are given in nautical miles (M) or metres (m).

Many more details and the full Russian document is found here.

 

 

Stimulus Money Fraud in Maryland

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TheHill.com:

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) wants the White House to look at unspent money from the 2009 stimulus package instead of asking Congress for a new fiscal package.

President Barack Obama on Saturday night wrote to congressional leaders urging them to pass legislation extending tax cuts and add new spending to prevent “hundreds of thousands” teacher layoffs, among other cuts. Obama said that without such measures the economy could “slide backwards.”

Hoyer said on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday that there is “spending fatigue” across the country and that he is encouraging the administration to look at last year’s $787 billion stimulus package to see if some money can be redirected.

“I have asked the White House to look at the package we already passed,” Hoyer said. “I personally believe if we have dollars not yet expended in the recovery act we could apply to this immediate need.”

***

Has one wondering now, does it not?

IG Finds Extensive Abuse of Stimulus Energy Efficiency Funds

Maryland contractors’ directors used grant funds to renovate home, donate to child’s school, hike executive pay

 

FreeBeacon: Officials at a pair of government contractors routinely overbilled the Energy Department and used government funds for personal expenses such as home renovation and donations to an executive’s child’s school, according to federal watchdogs.

Those were just a few of the numerous improper expenditures of grant funds under a DOE weatherization program funded by federal taxpayers and administered by the Maryland Department of Housing and Community Development (DHCD).

“Weak fiscal controls over subgrantees, combined with deficiencies in subgrantee accounting systems, have led to the Program funding improper payments to local agencies rather than furthering the Program’s goals of installing energy efficiency retrofits for low-income families,” DOE’s inspector general said in a report released on Tuesday.

The report accuses the contractors, C&O Conservation and Maryland Energy Conservation (MEC), of “unethical accounting practices” and warns, “in the absence of immediate improvements in financial controls, the risk of fraud, waste, and abuse is increased.”

The two contractors together received more than $15 million in taxpayer funds through the weatherization program. In addition to illicit financial practices, the report raises concerns about the two contractors’ “less-than-arm’s-length business arrangements.”

According to the report, M&O routinely overbilled DHCD for services related to DOE weatherization grants partly funded by the 2009 stimulus bill, which set aside $5 billion for weatherization grants to state agencies.

The IG examined just 80 of C&O’s 1,135 federally funded weatherization projects. It identified 57 examples of the company charging excessive fees for its services or inflating the hourly rates for which it billed the DHCD.

The report also identified a host of unallowable billings under the program, including maintenance of a C&O director’s personal vehicle, a $4,000 donation to a director’s child’s school, and “about $8,000 in bad debt expenses related to reimbursement claims that C&O had written off and then charged to the Program.”

“C&O used Program funds for the personal benefit of inside directors,” the IG wrote. “Of great concern, we found that construction on a C&O inside director’s home was funded in part with Program funds.”

C&O and MEC employees took part in insulation and drywall installation “training,” they told the IG. That training entailed renovating the home of a C&O director and charging related expenses to the weatherization program.

The relationship between the two contractors is also of concern, the IG found. “C&O and MEC’s boards of directors included employees and multiple related family members,” the report found.

“Given this lack of independence on the boards, family members and executive employees had the ability to substantially influence the actions of their respective organizations, such as approving their own compensation or conducting business with inside directors and related parties.”

Due in part to those apparent conflicts, excessive compensation was a particular issue of concern for the contractors. One C&O director who also served as an “executive employee” received a 79 percent raise in 2012, which the IG deemed “unreasonable under OMB cost principles.”

It also questioned compensation for an MEC director’s spouse, who received “an hourly rate more than 50 percent higher than that of the nearest counterpart in the organization” while performing administrative work from home.

MEC declined to comment on the report. C&O did not return a request for comment by press time.

UK Feeling Same U.S. Pain on Immigration

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LONDON (AFP) – 

The disruption to freight between Britain and mainland Europe caused by strikes and illegal immigration is starting to hurt British businesses, from luxury English car manufacturers to Scottish seafood exporters.

Industrial action and delays caused by migrants massed at the French port of Calais are taking a toll on the other side of the Channel, with thousands of trucks queueing up at England’s southeastern tip for ferry and freight shuttle rail services.

“While clearly hampering holidaymakers, the disruption at Calais also has an economic impact as exporters are being delayed getting their goods to market,” said Katja Hall, deputy director-general of the Confederation of British Industry, the nation’s biggest employers’ body.

The disruption is costing the British economy £250 million ($390 million, 355 million euros) a day in lost trade, according to the Freight Transport Association trade body.

UK funds 100 extra Channel tunnel guards as migrant standoff continues

Philip Hammond claims government has ‘got a grip’ on the Calais migrant crisis, with UK Border Force officials now stationed in Eurotunnel control room

Britain is to fund an extra 100 border guards at the Channel tunnel terminal on the French side, the foreign secretary Philip Hammond has announced, as he said the government has “got a grip” on the Calais migrant crisis.

As Eurotunnel reported that there were a further 700 attempts on Sunday night to board Channel tunnel trains, Hammond said that officials from the UK Border Force would start working inside the Eurotunnel control room in Coquelles.

Hammond made the announcement after chairing a 90-minute meeting of the government’s emergency Cobra committee in Whitehall.

David Cameron was absent from the meeting, after embarking on the first stage of his summer holiday in the UK. The prime minister will return to London later this week before resuming his holiday.

Hammond said: “I think we have got a grip on the crisis. We saw a peak last week, since when the number of illegal migrants has tailed off. We have taken a number of measures in collaboration with the French authorities and Eurotunnel which are already having an effect and over the next day or two I would expect to have an even greater effect.”

The foreign secretary said that ministers and officials had agreed at the Cobra meeting that Britain would fund an extra 100 guards, taking the total number to 300, at the terminal at Coquelles. The guards will be recruited by the French authorities but will be funded by the UK.

Hammond said: “I’m pleased to say we have seen a much improved level of cooperation and collaboration with Eurotunnel over the past 48 hours, with trains being cancelled where appropriate and in some cases trains being reversed back into Coquelles where there is a danger of illegal migrants being on board.

“From this evening, UK Border Force and French police will have a presence in the Eurotunnel control room at Coquelles and that will greatly enhance the practical collaborative working at the site. I also understand this evening the company has accepted our offer of additional guards and we expect up to 100 additional guards to be deployed into the terminal area.”

Hammond announced that the strengthening of the perimeter fence around the entrance to the Channel tunnel in France will be completed by Friday. Ministers hope that the pressure on hauliers will be relieved by opening up military bases to take lorries delayed by the disruption in the tunnel.

He said: “On this side of the Channel we are in the final stages of procuring some additional facilities to support the (Operation) Stack lorry-holding operations so that when it is switched on again later this week the disruption on the motorways will be less.”

Hammond also announced that Britain and France would redouble their efforts for a “more robust approach” by the European Union to return migrants to their countries of origin. The two countries will also attempt to discourage migrants from travelling to Europe in the first place, by making clear that neither has “streets paved with gold” – reiterating the claim made by home secretary Theresa May over the weekend.

On Monday ministers announced that the requirement for landlords to check on the immigration status of potential tenants is to be toughened and rolled out across the country – even before an official evaluation of the West Midlands pilot scheme has been completed.

It has emerged that the pilot scheme, which started in December, has already led to British citizens without passports being turned away as tenants.

James Brokenshire, the immigration minister, told landlords on 7 July that the six-month pilot had raised concerns about some British citizens with limited documentation who appeared to find it harder to get access to rented accommodation.

Microsoft and Their $100 BILLION Offshore

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While some domestic corporations do maintain headquarter offices in the United States, their money is often elsewhere to avoid the destructive tax code. But does Microsoft get an official pass or waiver from the Obama administration?

In September of 2014, Obama and Jack Lew at Treasury took decisive action.

Washington Post: The Obama administration took action Monday to discourage corporations from moving their headquarters abroad to avoid U.S. taxes, announcing new rules designed to make such transactions significantly less profitable.

The rules, which take effect immediately, will not block the practice, and Treasury Secretary Jack Lew again called on Congress to enact more far-reaching reforms. But in the meantime, he said, federal officials “cannot wait to address this problem,” which threatens to rob the U.S. Treasury of tens of billions of dollars.

“This action will significantly diminish the ability of inverted companies to escape U.S. taxation,” Lew told reporters. “For some companies considering deals, today’s action will mean that inversions no longer make economic sense.

“These transactions may be legal, but they’re wrong,” he added. “And the law should change.”

Tax analysts praised the new regulations, saying they will make it much harder for U.S. firms to bring cash earned abroad back to the United States tax-free — a major incentive in the relocations known as tax “inversions.” It was not immediately clear, however, whether the new rules would be sufficient to head off a wave of inversions expected to cascade over the American landscape in the weeks before the Nov. 4 midterm congressional elections.

Microsoft’s Offshore Profit Pile Surges Past $100 Billion Mark

Microsoft Corp.’s stockpile of offshore profits rose to $108 billion, with a 17 percent increase over the past year as the company continues reaping profits in low-tax foreign jurisdictions.

The company crossed the $100 billion mark, making it just the second U.S. corporation — after General Electric Co. — to do so, according to a securities filing July 31. Apple Inc. has more cash abroad than Microsoft, but it already has assumed for accounting purposes that it will pay tax on some of the stockpile and thus has less than $70 billion offshore that would affect earnings directly if repatriated.

What’s keeping Microsoft’s cash abroad is the U.S. tax code. The company would be required to pay the difference between its foreign taxes and the 35 percent U.S. corporate tax rate if it brought the money home.

To get its $108.3 billion back, Microsoft would have to pay the U.S. $34.5 billion in taxes. That equals a 31.9 percent rate, which suggests that the company has paid as little as 3.1 percent in taxes on its foreign income, because of operations in low-tax Ireland, Singapore and Puerto Rico.

The Internal Revenue Service and Microsoft are in the midst of an intense legal battle over the company’s transfer pricing, or intracompany transactions. The federal government is auditing the company’s returns as far back as 2004, and Microsoft has challenged the government’s hiring of outside lawyers.

Peter Wootton, a spokesman for Microsoft, declined to comment.

Repatriating Profits

Under current law, U.S. companies owe the full 35 percent rate on profits they earn around the world, but they don’t have to pay the U.S. until they repatriate the profits. That gives companies an incentive to book profits overseas and leave them there, and that’s just what they’ve done.

U.S. companies have more than $2 trillion amassed outside the U.S., according to a Bloomberg News review earlier this year of the securities filings of 304 companies.

Apple has more than $200 billion in cash stockpiled, with almost 90 percent of it overseas. As of its most recent annual report, Apple had $69.7 billion in profits on which it hasn’t assumed taxes.

U.S. lawmakers are looking for ways to get some of that cash back in the U.S. President Barack Obama supports a one-time 14 percent tax on stockpiled profits, with the proceeds going to highways and other infrastructure programs. Some Republicans favor a similar approach and are working on a detailed plan.

POTUS Far From Lame Duck, Progressive ‘To-Do’ Items

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The arrogance of Barack Obama continues. Just a week ago, he declared he could win a third term if he ran again.

“I actually think I’m a pretty good President. I think if I ran, I could win. But I can’t,” Obama ad-libbed during a speech in Ethiopia. “There’s a lot that I’d like to do to keep America moving. But the law is the law, and no person is above the law, not even the president.”

So imagine how blindsided America is about to be from now until January 2017. What more is planned? Normalizing relations with Bashir al Assad? Normalizing relations with North Korea? Suspending Border Patrol operations completely? Federalizing all national banks? Imposing more agency regulations on Americans and business? Making all interstate roads toll roads?

Lack of imagination now could prevent you from being prepared. Consider other countries that don’t impose government tyrannical policies and have a better competing edge. Cutting military personnel to roving 4 day work weeks? Replacing Ruth Bader Gingsberg on the Supreme Court with Cass Sunstein? Bailing out the City of Chicago to the tune of $7 billion?

Let us start with what is coming almost immediately.

Obama’s big climate rule ready for Monday launch

Politico: Supporters say they plan to be at the White House for the announcement of an EPA rule that will take on power plants’ pollution.

President Barack Obama is poised to push ahead with the nation’s most ambitious environmental regulation in decades — a crackdown on power plants’ greenhouse gas emissions that the administration hopes will put the U.S. in striking distance of achieving a global agreement to combat climate change.

Environmentalists supporting the rule say they plan to be at the White House for a Monday afternoon announcement that they hope will feature the president himself, as part of what’s shaping up to be a major sales pitch both within and outside the administration. Allies including Virginia environmental groups, elected officials and green-minded business groups have also scheduled media calls for 3 p.m. Monday to react to the news.

The White House has not confirmed the timing of the announcement.

The regulation is expected to ease up on a few of the most controversial provisions that the Environmental Protection Agency included in its draft proposals in the past two years. But it will still set up a years-long legal and political battle with congressional Republicans and other opponents, who call it the major weapon in Obama’s “War on Coal,” and it promises to become a major point of contention for the 2016 presidential race.

The regulation also puts a capstone on Obama’s efforts to secure a legacy as the president who made a serious assault on global warming, without waiting for action from Congress — though he will have to depend on his successors to carry it through. States will also play a big role, with six governors so far indicating they won’t comply with EPA’s mandates.

Environmentalists, who have been pressing for Obama to announce the rule personally, call it a crucial first step in cutting the pollution that scientists blame for boosting the Earth’s temperatures and lifting sea levels. But they say far steeper cuts will still be needed if the world is to avoid the worst effects of climate change.

“This is a huge part of the president’s commitment to reducing greenhouse gases,” said Carol Browner, Obama’s first-term climate czar, who left the White House several months after the administration’s attempt at comprehensive climate legislation failed in 2010. “He has viewed the issue of climate change as something he has responsibility for under the law — the moral and ethical responsibility domestically, but also globally.”

Opponents vow that the rule will not stand. “We believe it’s legally deficient on a number of fronts and believe it’s going to have a terrible impact on citizens across the country,” said West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, one of several plaintiffs who won a Supreme Court victory this summer over an EPA mercury rule.

Future legal challenges against the climate rule are also likely to end up in front of the Supreme Court.

The broad strokes of the rule are expected to match the drafts that EPA has issued over the past two years: By 2030, existing power plants will have to put out an average of 30 percent less carbon dioxide than they did in 2005 — a goal the U.S. is about halfway to meeting. And the rule effectively bars the construction of new coal-fired power plants, the biggest source of carbon pollution in the U.S.

Together, the requirements would change the way the U.S. produces and uses electricity, continuing an ongoing wave of coal-plant shutdowns while offering legs up to natural gas, solar, wind and maybe nuclear.

For people closely following the rule, the major questions concern how much the final rule will differ from what EPA originally proposed in September 2013 and last June. Sources have said EPA will roll back an interim pollution-cutting deadline that states and power companies attacked as unworkable, to 2022 from 2020. The agency is also expected to abandon its proposal to require future coal-burning plants to capture and store their carbon pollution, an expensive mandate that opponents said would be vulnerable in court because it violates a 2005 energy law.

States are also expected to get an extra year to submit their compliance plans to EPA — 2018 instead of 2017.

Other potential changes could include making it easier for nuclear power plants and their carbon-free emissions to count toward meeting states’ cleanup targets, changing the way that energy-efficiency initiatives are included in calculating states’ reduction goals, and altering the way that EPA’s formulas treat green energy that is produced in one state but sold in another.

And EPA could tweak the complicated formulas that set widely varying cleanup targets for each state, which in last year’s draft ranged from cuts of 11 percent for North Dakota to 72 percent for Washington state. The raw numbers don’t necessarily reflect the degree of difficulty: Washington, for instance, could meet most of its goal by closing one coal plant that’s already scheduled for retirement, EPA has said.

The costs of the rule will be big — but so will the benefits, the administration contends. Last summer, EPA estimated that the portion dealing with existing power plants would bring $55 billion to $93 billion in economic benefits, compared with $7.3 billion to $8.8 billion in costs to the economy.

But EPA’s critics note that the rule comes amid troubling financial times for the coal industry, and might even arrive on the same day that a major coal producer — Virginia-based Alpha Natural Resources — is expected to file for bankruptcy protection. That follows several other high-profile coal company bankruptcy filings.

Environmental regulations like the carbon rule and a forthcoming Interior Department rule meant to protect Appalachian streams are only part of the reason coal has dropped from nearly 50 percent of the nation’s electricity in 2005 to 39 percent last year. Inexpensive natural gas, which burns more cleanly than coal does, has taken a greater share of the market. And in some regions, coal deposits are becoming increasingly more difficult and less economical to mine.

Meanwhile, Obama’s earlier attempts to tackle climate change have struggled too. The House passed a cap-and-trade bill in 2009, but it died in the Senate the following year despite the Democrats holding a large majority. The president also stumbled with an anticlimactic 2009 climate summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. But he revived climate change as a theme late in his 2012 reelection campaign, declaring that “climate change is not a hoax,” and in his second inaugural address, in which he said failing to take on the threat “would betray our children and future generations.”

The credibility of those promises will be at stake in December, when negotiators the U.S. and other nations gather in Paris to try to reach a global climate agreement.

The final rule is also timed for maximum momentum to take advantage of the final year and a half of Obama’s time in office. Litigation over the rule is likely to last through this decade and potentially into the 2020s, making the winner of the 2016 presidential race a key figure in Obama’s climate legacy.

While it remains unclear just how far a Republican president could roll back the regulation, all sides agree a GOP White House would spell significant trouble for the carbon rule. The GOP field of 2016 candidates opposes the rule: Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said it is “unworkable,” while former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has called it “irresponsible and ineffective.”

Meanwhile, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton has pledged to protect the rule, while it garnered praise from rival Martin O’Malley and Bernie Sanders has called for even further climate action.