Category Archives: Industry Jobs Oil Economics

Secretary of State Tillson: Kremlin Order of Friendship

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In 1994, Boris Yeltsin ordered by decree an award known as the ‘Order of Friendship’. Yeltsin emerged to power under the perestroika movement and under his reign, he terminated the Russian Constitution, the Parliament and widespread corruption spread through his term due mostly on industries dealing with oil commodities.

In 1989, Yeltsin visited Texas to better understand the fossil fuel industry and return to his motherland to stop the country from falling into economic collapse yet failed. Crime, protests and prices of basic needs saw inflationary prices such that the Soviet Union soon fell.

With the country in chaos and corruption spreading Yeltsin forged a relationship with Rex Tillerson of Exxon Mobile, the top candidate for Secretary of State in the new Trump administration. Yeltsin bestowed an award to Tillerson known as the ‘Order of Friendship’. Then came the deployment of the business partnerships.

Exxon’s landmark 2011 joint venture with Kremlin-controlled Rosneft calls for upwards of $500 billion in investment over the coming decades. The companies are planning an offshore drilling campaign in Russia’s frozen Chukchi Sea, Laptev Sea and Kara Sea, as well as the Black Sea. They’ll also be drilling onshore in western Siberia, where the Bazhenov and Achimov formations are thought to be many times bigger than the Bakken shale of North Dakota. In addition, Exxon and Rosneft are working to finalize designs for an LNG project in Russia’s far east.

As in any good bromance, they hang out in each others’ neighborhoods. To balance out the geographic breadth of the partnership, Rosneft has joined with Exxon to invest in 20 deepwater exploration blocks in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as onshore projects in Texas and Alberta, Canada. Exxon has also given Rosneft the option to acquire a 25% stake in the Port Thomson Unit, which is estimated to hold a quarter of the natural gas and condensate reserves on Alaska’s North Slope. Back in 2007, amid Putin’s moves to reassert state control over Russia’s energy industry, Exxon’s Sakhalin-1 JV with Gazprom was thought to be a target. But CEO Rex Tillerson made it clear back then that he wouldn’t be pushed around and that he expected Russia to abide by contracts. As the Financial Times reported at the time:

Mr Tillerson said Russia had moved past its phase of trying to regain control of resources. “They want foreign participation because they know there’s technology capability that they need access to and there’s know-how that they need access to.”

Future investment by Exxon would depend on that contract being honoured, he said. “As long as they say, ‘We don’t like that deal we signed back then, but we’ll honour it’, that doesn’t stand in the way of our investments – we can proceed.”

Although Exxon did eventually accede to Gazprom’s wishes that it, not Exxon, control the destination of gas from Sakhalin-1 (Exxon wanted to sell directly to China), what Exxon got in return for its flexibility was an even bigger deal with Rosneft — that big new LNG project being engineered now, which could end up costing $15 billion or more.

In signing agreements with Rosneft last June, Tillerson remarked, “Experience tells us that a good foundation is critical for success in the Arctic and elsewhere. ExxonMobil’s Sakhalin-1 project with Rosneft is an example where we have put this experience to work.”

Last summer Putin made it official; he awarded Tillerson Russia’s Order of Friendship. Friends, joined in their shared respect for just how hard it is to keep their oil and gas empires humming. Commiserating in the challenge of figuring out how to find growth when you’re already the biggest in the world.

Just as Putin is unlikely to give back Crimea, you can forget about a company as growth-hungry as Exxon willingly backing away from its Kremlin connections out of some perceived patriotic American duty. As Tillerson’s predecessor Lee Raymond famously said (quoted in Steve Coll’s book Private Empire: ExxonMobil and American Power): “I’m not a U.S. company and I don’t make decisions based on what’s good for the U.S.” More here from Forbes.

The U.S. military is quite concerned about Russia’s aggression in the Artic as the Russians are using the oil exploration as a dual use mission, the other being espionage while it appears Tillerson and Putin have come to an accommodation on joint operations. Will this affect national security? Already has and includes China.

The U.S. intelligence focus is chiefly aimed at Russia’s military buildup in the far north under President Vladimir Putin. The country’s Northern Fleet is based above the Arctic Circle at Murmansk.

The Russian government announced plans in March 2014 to reopen 10 former Soviet-era military bases along the Arctic seaboard, including 14 airfields, that were closed after the end of the Cold War. A shipyard in northern Russia also is constructing four nuclear-powered submarines.

Alaska Gov. Bill Walker complained that the Pentagon is closing bases and shedding troops while Moscow has begun rebuilding a military force that was eviscerated after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“It’s the biggest buildup of the Russian military since the Cold War,” Walker told reporters during Obama’s visit to his state. “They’re reopening 10 bases and building four more, and they’re all in the Arctic, so here we are in the middle of the pond, feeling a little bit uncomfortable with the military drawdown.” More here from the LATimes.

In 2014: Russia’s state-run OAO Rosneft said a well drilled in the Kara Sea region of the Arctic Ocean with Exxon Mobil Corp. struck oil, showing the region has the potential to become one of the world’s most important crude-producing areas. The discovery sharpens the dispute between Russia and the U.S. over President Vladimir Putin’s actions in Ukraine. The well was drilled before the Oct. 10 deadline Exxon was granted by the U.S. government under sanctions barring American companies from working in Russia’s Arctic offshore. Rosneft and Exxon won’t be able to do more drilling, putting the exploration and development of the area on hold despite the find announced today. More here from Bloomberg.

Related reading: For Putin and Russia it is Articulus (Crisis)

In summary, going back to perestroika, perhaps Tillerson and Trump need to apply it beginning now. The implications going forward are huge and no one can predict the consequences due to all the moving parts. We do know the U.S. sanctions and those of Europe applied to the Russian oil company Rosneft have had some affect and should in part due to Crimea and Ukraine. The balance of the Baltic States stability remain in question due to the continued aggression by Russia in the region. Russia has sold off some ownership in Rosneft to raise capital, $11 billion worth of capital. It is most interesting Qatar is a financial player now in Rosneft. Qatar is the satellite Taliban headquarters and it was where the Taliban 5 were shipped to from Guantanamo Bay. A Qatari official said of the Gitmo detainees:

A Qatar official said the Taliban men, who have been granted Qatari residency permits, will not be treated like prisoners while in Doha and no U.S. officials will be involved in monitoring their movement while in the country.

“Under the deal they have to stay in Qatar for a year and then they will be allowed to travel outside the country… They can go back to Afghanistan if they want to,” the official said. More from Reuters in 2014.

It all got complicated real fast eh? Order of Friendship could take on a wider definition beginning in 2017 if Tillerson is confirmed as Secretary of State. What say you?

 

General Kelly Pegged to Head DHS

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This is going to take another waiver…. I hope that early on in the Trump administration there will be a final act to list and designate drug cartels as terror organizations. Fair warning however, the economies of Latin American countries could financially collapse.

 FreeBeacon

It is also notable that General Kelly lost a son to the enemy known as the Taliban in 2010 in Afghanistan.

WaPo: Donald Trump has chosen retired Marine Gen. John F. Kelly to run the Department of Homeland Security, turning to a blunt-spoken border security hawk who clashed with the Obama administration over women in combat and plans to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, according to people familiar with the decision.

Kelly, who retired in February as chief of U.S. Southern Command, would inherit a massive and often troubled department responsible for overseeing perhaps the most controversial part of Trump’s agenda: his proposed crackdown on illegal immigration. DHS is the third-largest Cabinet department, with more than 240,000 employees who do everything from fight terrorism to protect the president and enforce immigration laws.

Kelly, 66, is a widely respected military officer who served for more than 40 years, and he is not expected to face difficulty winning Senate confirmation. Trump’s team was drawn to him because of his southwest border expertise, people familiar with the transition said. Like the president-elect Kelly has sounded the alarm about drugs, terrorism and other cross-border threats he seems as emanating from Mexico and Central and South America.

Yet Kelly’s nomination could raise questions about what critics see as Trump’s tendency to surround himself with too many military figures. Trump has also selected retired Marine Gen. James N. Mattis for defense secretary and retired Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn as national security adviser, while retired Army Gen. David Petraeus is under consideration for secretary of state.

Kelly, a Boston native, was chosen over an array of other candidates who also met with Trump after his surprise election victory last month. Those in contention included Frances Townsend, a top homeland security and counterterrorism official in the George W. Bush administration; Milwaukee County sheriff David Clarke and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach. Clarke and Kobach are vocal Trump backers, with Kobach being nationally known for his strong views on restricting illegal immigration. More here.

 MilitaryTimes

**** Why is General Kelly a stellar choice for the Department of Homeland Security? In 2015, in part his testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee gives us a huge clue:

Last year, almost half a million migrants1 from Central America and Mexico—including over 50,000 unaccompanied children (UAC) and families—were apprehended on our border, many fleeing violence, poverty, and the spreading influence of criminal networks and gangs. Assistant Secretary of State Roberta Jacobson testified that the “UAC migration serves as a warning sign that the serious and longstanding challenges in Central America are worsening.”2 In my opinion, the relative ease with which human smugglers moved tens of thousands of people to our nation’s doorstep also serves as another warning sign: these smuggling routes are a potential vulnerability to our homeland. As I stated last year, terrorist organizations could seek to leverage those same smuggling routes to move operatives with intent to cause grave harm to our citizens or even bring weapons of mass destruction into the United States. Mr. Chairman, Members, addressing the root causes of insecurity and instability is not just in the region’s interests, but ours as well, which is why I support President Obama’s commitment to increase assistance to Central America.

These and other challenges underscore the enduring importance of U.S. Southern Command’s mission to protect our southern approaches. We do not and cannot do this mission alone. Our strong partnerships with the U.S. interagency—especially with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the U.S. Coast Guard, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), and the Departments of Treasury and State—are integral to our efforts to ensure the forward defense of the U.S. homeland. We are also fortunate to have strong, capable partners like Colombia, Chile, Brazil, El Salvador, and Panama, regional

leaders and outstanding contributors to hemispheric and international security. Given our limited intelligence assets, interagency relationships and bilateral cooperation are critical to identifying and monitoring threats to U.S. national security and regional stability.

I am also troubled by the financial and operational overlap between criminal and terrorist networks in the region. Although the extent of criminal-terrorist cooperation is unclear, what is clear is that terrorists and militant organizations easily tap into the international illicit marketplace to underwrite their activities and obtain arms and funding to conduct operations.4 It’s easy to see why: illicit trafficking is estimated to be a $650 billion industry—larger than the GDP of all but 20 countries in the world—and less than 1 percent of global illicit financial flows is currently being seized or frozen.5 The terrorist group Lebanese Hezbollah—which has long viewed the region as a potential attack venue against Israeli or other Western targets—has supporters and sympathizers in Lebanese diaspora communities in Latin America, some of whom are involved in lucrative illicit activities like money laundering and trafficking in counterfeit goods and drugs. These clan-based criminal networks exploit corruption and lax law enforcement in places like the Tri-Border Area of Brazil, Paraguay, and Argentina and the Colon Free Trade Zone in Panama and generate revenue, an unknown amount of which is transferred to Lebanese Hezbollah. Unfortunately, our limited intelligence capabilities make it difficult to fully assess the amount of terrorist financing generated in Latin America, or understand the scope of possible criminal-terrorist collaboration. You can read his presentation and testimony here.

 

 

Stability is Instability in Italy as Prime Minister Resigns

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Reuters: Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi is set to resign on Monday after suffering a crushing defeat in a referendum over constitutional reform, tipping the euro zone’s third-largest economy into political turmoil.

His decision to quit after just two-and-a-half years in office deals a blow to the European Union, already reeling from multiple crises and struggling to overcome anti-establishment forces that have battered the Western world this year.

Renzi’s emotional, midnight resignation announcement sent the euro lower and jolted stock and bond markets on concerns that early elections could follow, possibly paving the way for an anti-euro party, the 5-Star Movement, to come to power.

Financial markets bounced back later in the morning as European officials played down the prospect of a broader euro zone crisis, but Italy’s fragile bank sector had dropped more than 4.7 percent at 1320 GMT. [.FTIT8300]

Renzi has called a Cabinet meeting for 1730 GMT, after which he said he would tender his resignation.

European Commissioner for Economic and Financial Affairs Pierre Moscovici dismissed talk of a euro zone crisis, and German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble urged calm. Both said Italy’s institutions are capable of handling a government change, which would be its 64th since 1946.

Economy Minister Pier Carlo Padoan, who has pulled out of meetings with European finance ministers in Brussels this week, is viewed as a possible candidate to replace Renzi. Senate President Pietro Grasso and Transport Minister Graziano Delrio have also been tipped as possible successors.

It is unclear if Renzi will have enough support in his Democratic Party (PD) to remain party leader – a role that could give him a say in who becomes the next prime minister.

The government crisis could open the door to elections next year and to the possibility of the opposition 5-Star Movement gaining power in the heart of the single currency area. 5-Star, which campaigned hard for a ‘No’ vote, wants to hold a referendum instead on membership of the euro.

“I take full responsibility for the defeat,” Renzi said in his late-night speech, pledging to formally resign to President Sergio Mattarella on Monday.

“I will greet my successor with a smile and a hug, whoever it might be,” he said, struggling to contain his emotions when he thanked his wife and children for their support.

“We are not robots,” he said at one point.

SUCCESSOR

Sunday’s referendum was over government plans to reduce the powers of the upper house Senate and regional authorities but was viewed by many people as a chance to register dissatisfaction with Renzi, who has struggled to revive economic growth, and mainstream politics.

“No” won an overwhelming 59.1 percent of the vote, according to the final count. About 33 million Italians, or two-thirds of eligible voters, cast ballots following months of bitter campaigning that pitted Renzi against all major opposition parties, including the anti-establishment 5-Star.

The euro briefly tumbled overnight to 21-month lows against the dollar, as markets worried instability could deal a hammer blow to Italian banks, which are looking to raise around 20 billion euros ($21 billion) in coming months. However, by early in the European morning it had largely rebounded. [FRX/]

Italy’s banks are weighed down by more than 350 billion euros of bad loans.

Shares in Monte dei Paschi fluctuated wildly on Monday and were down almost 5 percent at 1320 GMT, as a consortium of investment bankers met to discuss a capital increase to raise 5 billion euros which the lender needs by the end of the month to avoid being wound down.

Yields on Italy’s benchmark 10-year bond initially soared to more than 2.07 percent, but then retreated back to 2.04 percent. [GVD/EUR]

Mattarella will consult with party leaders before naming a new prime minister – the fourth successive head of government to be appointed without an electoral mandate, a fact that underscores the fragility of Italy’s political system.

In the meantime, Renzi would stay on as caretaker.

The new prime minister, who will need the backing of Renzi’s PD to take office, will have to draw up a new electoral law, with 5-Star urging a swift deal to open the way for elections in early 2017, a year ahead of schedule.

“From tomorrow, we will start work on putting together 5-Star’s future program and the team of people that will make up a future government,” said Luigi Di Maio, tipped to be the group’s prime ministerial candidate.

Opinion polls put 5-Star neck-and-neck with the PD.

DEMOLITION MAN

Renzi, 41, took office in 2014 promising to shake up hidebound Italy and presenting himself as an anti-establishment “demolition man” determined to crash through a smothering bureaucracy and reshape creaking institutions.

However, his economic policies have made little impact, and the 5-Star Movement has claimed the anti-establishment banner, tapping into a populist mood that has seen Britons vote to leave the European Union and Americans elect Donald Trump president.

In a moment of relief for mainstream Europe, Austrian voters on Sunday rejected Norbert Hofer, vying to become the first freely elected far-right head of state in Europe since World War Two, choosing a Greens leader as president instead.

But elsewhere, the established order is in retreat. French President Francois Hollande said last week he would not seek re-election next year, and even German Chancellor Angela Merkel looks vulnerable as she seeks a fourth term in 2017.

Just this past July, 2016:

BusinessInsider: The economic and political crisis brewing in Italy was, until recently at least, going largely unnoticed. 

Italians will have a say on reforms to its Senate, the upper house of parliament, in October.

The proposed reforms are widespread, and if approved could improve the stability of Italy’s political set up and allow Prime Minister Matteo Renzi to push through laws aimed at improving the country’s economic competitiveness.

If denied, Renzi’s government will most likely fall, plunging Italy back into the type of political chaos last seen after the ousting of former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, according to Deutsche Bank.

The country is also contending with a banking crisis, and a stagnant economy with crushingly low productivity, a history of missing growth targets, and generally underperforming the rest of Europe in recent years. All this led the International Monetary Fund to warn earlier this week of “two lost decades” for the nation.

All in all, things don’t look particularly peachy for Italy, especially when warnings that the country’s woes — and not Brexit — could be the catalyst to tear the Eurozone apart in coming years.

But what exactly are the biggest issues that present risks to Italy and its political and economic stability? Thankfully, following its recent mission to the country, the International Monetary Fund has produced a handy flow chart, or “risk matrix” showing all the threats to stability in the country.

It includes growing tensions in the Middle East, the UK’s vote to leave the EU, the rise of populism, and of course, Italy’s banking crisis which — despite steps being taken towards a solution — is still a massive threat.

The Beltway Lawyer Chatter about the Trump Admin

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As Trump Tests Legal Boundaries, Small DOJ Unit Poised for Big Role

Zoe Tillman, The National Law Journal

President-elect Donald Trump moved quickly in naming his picks for two key legal posts, selecting a conservative politician in Sen. Jeff Sessions to run the U.S. Department of Justice and a loyal adviser in Jones Day partner Donald McGahn II to serve as White House counsel.

Washington lawyers now have their eyes on a less visible appointment, but one that could set the tone on issues ranging from how completely the incoming president separates himself from his business interests to how his administration acts on campaign promises to spike trade agreements and revive harsh interrogation policies.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which handles legal questions from the White House and federal agencies, often has the last word on murky areas of law and there are plenty trailing Trump into the White House. That positions the next OLC chief to play a key role as the White House maps out its agenda but may also mean navigating delicate politics in an administration that seems bent on testing conventional legal doctrine.

Former OLC officials say the next head of the office will have to walk a fine line to be a lawyer Trump trusts and won’t try to circumvent, without being seen as a rubber stamp.

“It’s going to be an interesting time at OLC because a number of issues are going to be turned upside down,” said Walter Dellinger, a partner at O’Melveny & Myers who led the office from 1993 to 1996.

Citing Trump’s statements in favor of waterboarding, for instance, Dellinger said “the fact that the incoming president has stated in several areas that he intends not to follow existing law will make the position more challenging—and more interesting.”

The Office of Legal Counsel often has a behind-the-scenes role in controversial executive branch policies. Under President George W. Bush, the Office of Legal Counsel established the legal framework for harsh interrogation techniques such as waterboarding; under President Barack Obama, it signed off on the deferral of deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants.

Questions about Trump’s ties to his eponymous company are expected to reach the office early in the new administration. In 2009, the OLC published an opinion about Obama’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, concluding that it didn’t violate the constitutional prohibition on receiving gifts or titles from foreign governments. Trump’s business dealings overseas and ties that his U.S. properties have to foreign governments present a new set of ethics questions.

Should Trump follow through on his campaign pledges to roll back Obama’s executive actions and federal regulations on everything from immigration to climate change, the office would advise him on whether he could do it, and how.

Early in Obama’s presidency, the OLC withdrew legal opinions from the second Bush administration about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects. Trump, who said on the campaign trail that “torture works,” could ask the office to revisit the issue.

A large part of the office’s work is resolving legal spats among agencies and interpreting federal laws and regulations. The lawyers review executive orders, and serve as an adviser to the executive branch on separation-of-powers issues. Occasionally, a big legal question—like torture or government surveillance—will come through.

John McGinnis, a professor at Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law who served as deputy assistant attorney general in the office from 1987 to 1991, cautioned against assuming that Trump’s campaign proclamations signal the policies he’ll embrace as president.

“People in campaigns, this is all politicians, do not speak in policy legal terms. I would not want to predict that what will come to OLC can be captured in the soundbites of a campaign,” McGinnis said.

Since the election, Trump has continued to express his interest in reviving the practice of waterboarding, although he said in a recent interview with The New York Times that he was intrigued by his conversation with a military general who said the practice wasn’t effective.

LEGAL CREDIBILITY

The Office of Legal Counsel is staffed by about 25 attorneys and has a budget of roughly $8 million. Yet because of its influence, it is one of the more politically contentious offices at the Justice Department. That was especially true in the years after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, when the office faced criticism for providing a legal rationale for torturing terror suspects. Both Bush and Obama saw nominees to lead the office stall in the Senate amid partisan opposition.

With a Republican majority in the U.S. Senate and weakened filibuster rules for executive nominees, Trump is expected to have an easier time getting his nominee through.

Some former DOJ officials questioned whether Trump might have a tough time finding a lawyer willing to serve, given the nature of the legal questions they’re expected to confront and the president-elect’s reputation as someone who doesn’t like to be told “no.”

A former top DOJ official in the second Bush administration who spoke on condition of anonymity said he knew lawyers who were hesitant about working for the department and for the OLC, given the controversial questions that office takes on. However, he said that there were many others who would want to work in government regardless of reservations they might have about the president-elect. .

The office has been a stepping stone for many influential lawyers. Among those who held the post under past Republican presidents are the late Supreme Court justices William Rehnquist and Antonin Scalia; Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner Theodore Olson; J. Michael Luttig, general counsel of The Boeing Co. and a retired judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit; and Ninth Circuit Judge Jay Bybee, who ran the office in the aftermath of 9/11 and signed the legal opinion authorizing “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Carl Nichols, a partner at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr and a former principal deputy associate attorney general during the second Bush administration, said the OLC chief is typically one of the most trusted advisers to the attorney general.

The office has “enormous legal credibility,” Nichols said. The specifics of the legal questions surrounding Trump and his agenda differ in some ways from his predecessors, Nichols said, but the ultimate task of grappling with the scope of executive power is a familiar one for the OLC.

“It’s a place where the White House and the agencies know if they have a hard question, they’ll have really terrific legal minds thinking about it,” he said.

HARD QUESTIONS

OLC lawyers aren’t the only ones who give legal advice to the executive branch. There are White House lawyers and each agency has its own legal department. During the Obama administration, a body of senior agency lawyers known as “The Lawyers’ Group” met to consider national security-related legal questions.

Harold Koh, a professor at Yale Law School who served as the legal adviser to the U.S. Department of State during the Obama administration and worked as a lawyer in the OLC, wrote in a recent blog post that he thought the interagency approach, which had been used in previous administrations, was the most effective process.

“Different agencies have different equities, perspectives, and areas of expertise and getting the input of all relevant legal arms of our vast executive branch is vital to sound decisionmaking,” Koh wrote.

But the OLC’s decisions carry significant weight, said Jonathan Adler, a professor at Case Western Reserve University School of Law, and although the president isn’t bound by the office’s conclusions, there’s strong precedent against defying them. That has led presidents to occasionally try to circumvent the office, Adler said, rather than having to deal with a contrary opinion. He cited as one example Obama’s decision in 2011 to reportedly eschew the usual OLC process in soliciting opinions about the legality of military action in Libya without congressional approval.

The office’s legal opinions “reflect, or are supposed to reflect, serious, largely neutral or as neutral as possible assessments of important legal questions about what the executive branch may or may not do,” Adler said.

A successful OLC head will take an “extremely proactive” approach to find ways for the administration to legally achieve policy goals, building up political capital for the occasions when the office has to tell the White House or an agency that they can’t do something within the bounds of the law, McGinnis said.

Dellinger said that his advice to an incoming president would be to pick an OLC head “who has a substantial career that gives him or her substantial stature and the ability to say no, and that will help keep you out of trouble.”

To the next head of the OLC, Dellinger said he would advise he or she to make sure to consult with career government attorneys, to always give an honest opinion of the law, and to have a good career to fall back on in the event of a serious disagreement with the White House.

“The job will drive you crazy if you’re not prepared to walk out the door,” he said.

 

Obama Admin Illegally Raiding Funds to Pay for Refugees

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There is still time to begin impeachment hearings on these people, schedule Oversight hearings and refer to DoJ from criminal prosecution as it is Congress alone that designates exactly where money is to be allocated and spent.

Meanwhile it seems HHS and the Office of Refugee Resettlement does not think some of these agencies need all the dollars assigned to them, perhaps that too is yet another place to eliminate waste, fraud and abuse if those agencies can in fact due without the raided funds. In the end, the Obama administration along with Sylvia Burwell have violated standing law with twisted priorities to non-citizens…yup illegals.

***

Feds cut $167 million in domestic programs to house, feed illegals for just 1 month

WT: The Department of Health and Human Services is raiding several of its accounts, including money for Medicare, the Ryan White AIDS/HIV program and those for cancer and flu research to cover a shortfall in housing illegal youths pouring over the border at a rate of 255 a day.

HHS is trying to come up with $167 million to fund the Office of Refugee Resettlement that is accepting the youths, according to the Center for Immigration Studies.

Policy Director Jessica Vaughan said that insiders have told her that the funding crisis has forced the department to squeeze programs for money.

She just revealed on the CIS website:

“An average of 255 illegal alien youths were taken into the custody of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) every day this month, according to the latest figures the agency provided to Congress. This is the largest number of illegal alien children ever in the care of the federal government. To pay for it, the agency says it will need an additional one or two billion dollars for the next year – above and beyond the $1.2 billion spent in 2016 and proposed for 2017 – depending on how many more arrive. For now, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), where ORR resides, is diverting $167 million from other programs to cover the cost of services for these new illegal arrivals through December 9, when the current continuing resolution expires.”

The money, she said, pays for “shelters, health care, schooling, recreation, and other services for the new illegal arrivals, who typically were brought to the border by smugglers paid by their parents, who often are living in the United States illegally.”

What’s more, it will pay for just one month.

Her sources said the following programs are being hit to pay for the illegals, about half of which the government will lose contact with.

— $14 million from the Health Resources and Services Administration, including $4.5 million from the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and $2 million from the Maternal and Child Health program.

— $14 million from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, for contagious disease prevention and treatment and other critical public health programs.

— $72 million from the National Institutes of Health, for research on cancer, diabetes, drug abuse, mental health, infectious diseases and much more.

— $8 million from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, for treatment and prevention programs.

— $8 million from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

— $39 million from the Children and Families Services Program.

— $4 million from the Aging and Disability Services Programs.

— $3 million from the Public Health and Social Services Emergency Fund, including more than $1 million from the Pandemic Influenza and BioShield Fund.