Congress to Bailout Puerto Rico

Posted on April 29, 2016April 29, 2016 by Denise Simon

Puerto Rico is a Commonwealth and is a U.S. territory. With a population of 3.5 million people the country is deeply in debt. Congress has been in discussions for months to draft a resolution as it has a debt payment due May 1 of $422 million. Worse, there is a debt payment due July 1 of $2 billion. The island Constitution requires the payments to be made over those bills for infrastructure including drinking water, police, and other public services. The bondholders have a have control of the credit unions where normal citizens have a major risk of losing their wealth.

If Congress Is to Rescue Puerto Rico, Key Conservative Has These Conditions

DailySignal: As the House struggles to find consensus on a plan to rescue Puerto Rico from its debt crisis, an influential conservative lawmaker today laid out his expectations for what legislation should look like.

Rep. Raúl Labrador, who is Puerto Rican, has been quiet about the plan being crafted by the Natural Resources Committee since he is a member of the panel and a direct participant in the negotiations.

But Labrador broke his silence before Capitol Hill reporters at the monthly Conversations with Conservatives event, declaring that any solution to Puerto Rico’s fiscal problems “cannot affect our states.”

“To me it’s pretty simple: Whatever we do on Puerto Rico cannot affect our states and cannot affect the way we are going to respond to any fiscal crisis in the future for any of the states,” said Labrador, R-Idaho, a founding member of a group of conservatives called the House Freedom Caucus

Before he can endorse the bill, Labrador said, he wants assurances that it treats different classes of creditors fairly and doesn’t open the door for Congress to give authority to struggling states to restructure their debts.

Earlier this month, the Natural Resources Committee released a draft bill that would create an outside fiscal oversight board to manage a process by which Puerto Rico could restructure its $72 billion debt load

The committee is revising the bill due to opposition from Republicans, the Treasury Department, and Democrats, and the legislation is not expected to be ready before May 1, when a $422 million debt payment by Puerto Rico is due. House leaders hope to act before a $2 billion payment comes due July 1.

Some holders of general obligation bonds whose debt payments are guaranteed by the Puerto Rican constitution have said they want to be exempted from the restructuring process facilitated by the proposed seven-member board.

Labrador said he doesn’t believe it’s “right” for those bondholders to get that exemption, but he also thinks pensioners should not be given higher priority than bondholders.

The Treasury Department, at one point, was planning to put pension payments to retired public employees in Puerto Rico ahead of payments to bondholders, according to The New York Times. Labrador said he wants the committee’s bill to include language ensuring that “pensions are not getting any priority over the secure debt

“I have spent a lot of time talking to a bit more objective bond companies that don’t have debt in Puerto Rico, and that’s their main concern,” Labrador said, adding that their “main concern” was that when Detroit filed for bankruptcy in 2013, it gave priority to pensions. He added:

That was an anomaly, so the bond market was not affected in any way. If we do that with Puerto Rico [give pensioners priority], what’s going to happen in the bond market is they will see a pattern and when they see that pattern, they are going to be concerned the same thing is going to happen in Illinois, the same thing is going to happen in California. And when they see that, all of a sudden the bond markets are going to react and that is going to affect every one of our states’ bonds. And it will affect the interest we pay on our bonds.

House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has promised to act on a solution for Puerto Rico and its 3.5 million American citizens, with the hope he would be supported by a majority of Republicans.

Labrador’s endorsement would go a long way to ensuring that, considering his sway in the Freedom Caucus.

The Idaho Republican said he can get there, and that “conservatives can support a bill that gives debt restructuring to Puerto Rico,” but only under certain conditions:

The fight I am having right now with the people who drafted this bill is that they want language to be loose enough that can get votes from the Democrats. Well, guess what, if the language is loose enough, then you are going to be able to get around the language. So what we have to do is be explicit in deciding what this oversight board should be doing and what the parameters are for judging the debt in Puerto Rico. Unless we do that, I think we are doing a disservice to the people in the United States.

A major question is whether the writers of the bill can satisfy enough conservatives without scaring away too many Democrats.

Rep. Jim Jordan, the Freedom Caucus chairman, told reporters today that it shouldn’t matter which party carries the legislation to passage, as long as lawmakers work together to solve a problem.

“We should do the right thing,” said Jordan, R-Ohio. “Whether that means you will have Democrats who vote for it, I don’t know. I think if you do the right thing, then people will vote for it. So that’s what should drive this—that you are doing the right thing.”

SCOTUS Ruled and EPA Ignores

Posted on April 28, 2016April 28, 2016 by Denise Simon

EPA Continues To Implement Global Warming Plan Supreme Court Said It Couldn’t

DailyCaller: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials are moving ahead with a key part of the Clean Power Plan (CPP) despite the Supreme Court issuing a stay against the agency’s global warming plan in February.

The EPA submitted a proposal to the White House for green energy subsidies for states that meet the federally mandated carbon dioxide reduction goals early. The Clean Energy Incentive Program would give “credit for power generated by new wind and solar projects in 2020 and 2021” and a “double credit for energy efficiency measures in low-income communities,” according to Politico’s Morning Energy.

Te move seems to violate the Supreme Court’s stay against CPP preventing the EPA from implementing its plan to cut carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants. EPA, however, argues it’s doing this for states that want to voluntarily cut emissions — despite this being part of CPP.

“Many states and tribes have indicated that they plan to move forward voluntarily to work to cut carbon pollution from power plants and have asked the agency to continue providing support and developing tools that may support those efforts, including the CEIP,” reads a statement provided to Politico from EPA.

EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy is set to talk more about the plan Wednesday afternoon and will no doubt defend it from critics who will say the agency is violating a Supreme Court order.

“Sending this proposal to OMB for review is a routine step and it is consistent with the Supreme Court stay of the Clean Power Plan,” the EPA said.

EPA has been moving forward with aspects of the CPP despite the Supreme Court’s decision. After the court’s February decision, EPA began signalling it would continue to work with states that want to “voluntarily” move forward.

“Are we going to respect the decision of the Supreme Court? You bet, of course we are,” McCarthy told utility executives in February. “But it doesn’t mean it’s the only thing we’re working on and it doesn’t mean we won’t continue to support any state that voluntarily wants to move forward.”

Likewise, the head of EPA’s air and radiation office, Janet McCabe, has also suggested the rule will eventually be upheld.

“EPA utility rules have been stayed twice before, and ultimately upheld,” McCabe said while participating in a panel discussion in Bloomington, Ind., last week. “It’s only smart for states to keep working on this.”

“We stand ready at EPA to help any state that wants to move forward with their planning activities,” McCabe said, noting that some states pledged to cut CO2 after the Supreme Court stayed CPP.

McCabe was referring to an agreement signed by 17 states in the aftermath of the Supreme Court decision pledging to push forward fighting global warming. The agreement, signed mostly by Democratic governors, promotes cooperation between states in promoting green energy, not explicitly mentioning global warming.

McCabe neglected to mention the 30 states and state agencies suing EPA to get CPP struck down. That coalition of states was also joined by dozens of business groups, the coal industry and labor unions fighting to keep coal-fired power plants from being forced to close.

“EPA has crossed a line by assigning itself vast regulatory authority that surpasses anything ever contemplated by Congress,” Jeffrey Connor, interim CEO of the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association (NRECA), said in a statement. NRECA opposes CPP.

“The fact is that EPA didn’t produce a rule simply to reduce emissions — it crafted a radical plan to restructure the U.S. power sector,” Connor said.

*****

From the White House:

The Clean Power Plan

The Clean Power Plan sets achievable standards to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. By setting these goals and enabling states to create tailored plans to meet them, the Plan will:

Protect the health of American families. In 2030, it will:

Prevent up to 3,600 premature deaths
Prevent 1,700 non-fatal heart attacks
Prevent 90,000 asthma attacks in children
Prevent 300,000 missed workdays and schooldays

Boost our economy by:

Leading to 30 percent more renewable energy generation
in 2030
Creating tens of thousands of jobs
Continuing to lower the costs of renewable energy

Save the average American family:

Nearly $85 a year on their energy bills in 2030
Save enough energy to power 30 million homes
in 2030
Save consumers $155 billion from 2020-2030

A Judge Issued a Gag Order, Preventing Speech

Posted on April 27, 2016April 27, 2016 by Denise Simon

Oregon Bakers Continue Legal Fight, Challenging ‘Gag Order’

Harkness/DailySignal

The Oregon bakers who were ordered to pay $135,000 for refusing to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding filed a brief with the Oregon Court of Appeals on Monday, arguing the ruling against them was biased and violates both the Oregon and U.S. constitutions.

“In America, you’re innocent until proven guilty,” said Kelly Shackelford, president and CEO of First Liberty Institute, the group representing Aaron and Melissa Klein in their legal fight. “Commissioner Brad Avakian decided the Kleins were guilty before he even heard their case. This is an egregious violation of the Kleins’ rights to due process. We hope the Oregon Court of Appeals will remedy this by dismissing the government’s case against the Kleins.”

Brad Avakian, commissioner of the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries, was responsible for issuing the final ruling on the case. On July 2, 2015, he ruled that in declining to bake a cake for a same-sex wedding due to their religious beliefs, the Kleins violated an Oregon law that prohibits discrimination in places of public accommodation against people based on their sexual orientation.

Avakian ordered the Kleins to pay $135,000 in mental, physical, and emotional damages to the couple whom they denied service.

Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer (who have since married) filed a complaint against Sweet Cakes by Melissa in Gresham, Ore., in February 2013, a month after the Kleins refused to make a cake for the same-sex couple’s wedding.

The Bureau of Labor and Industries opened its investigation into Sweet Cakes by Melissa in August 2013, six months after the agency received the initial complaint from Rachel and Laurel Bowman-Cryer alleging the bakery owners discriminated against them.

Yet, in the appeal brief filed Monday, lawyers for the Kleins argued that Avakian had publicly declared the Kleins guilty before even waiting for an investigation to take place, citing a Feb. 5, 2013, Facebook post.

In that post, Avakian writes, “Everyone has a right to their religious beliefs, but that doesn’t mean they can disobey laws that are already in place. Having one set of rules for everybody ensures that people are treated fairly as they go about their daily lives.”

In August 2013, after the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries announced it was opening an investigation to determine whether the Kleins had discriminated against the same-sex couple, Avakian also commented about the case, suggesting he had already decided that the Kleins were guilty. “Everybody is entitled to their own beliefs,” he said in an interview with The Oregonian, “but that doesn’t mean that folks have the right to discriminate.”

“The goal is never to shut down a business. The goal is to rehabilitate,” Avakian added.

Ken Klukowski, an attorney at First Liberty, told The Daily Signal that “it’s clear” Avakian demonstrated bias “that rises to the level of violating due process.”

In addition to ruling the Kleins must pay $135,000, Avakian also ordered the former bakery owners to “cease and desist” from speaking publicly about not wanting to bake cakes for same-sex weddings based on their Christian beliefs.

“The Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries hereby orders [Aaron and Melissa Klein] to cease and desist from publishing, circulating, issuing or displaying, or causing to be published … any communication … to the effect that any of the accommodations … will be refused, withheld from or denied to, or that any discrimination be made against, any person on account of their sexual orientation,” Avakian wrote in the final order.

The justification for this part of his final order originates from an interview Aaron and Melissa Klein participated in with Family Research Council’s Tony Perkins in 2014. During the interview, Aaron said that they, “don’t do same-sex weddings,” and “This fight is not over. We will continue to stand strong.”

Avakian wrote those statements demonstrate a “prospective intent to discriminate.”

“This gag order that they’re under right now, where they have been ordered by the government that they can’t even discuss these things with the media,” Klukowski said, “is shockingly overbroad.”

“There are aspects of their beliefs and of this case, including aspects of their religious beliefs about marriage, that if they were to share these things publicly, that the government could punish them, saying that it amounts to the equivalent of advertising their intention to continue engaging in illegal discrimination,” Klukowski said.

“That censors so much protected speech.”

The punishment for violating the order is “notoriously unspecific,” Klukowski added. Because of that, lawyers for the Kleins are treading carefully on what they allow their clients to do and say in public.

“This is a couple with young children and where the law does not specify what the most severe penalty could be where as far as we know, the sky could be the limit, that’s where we owe it to our clients to err on the side of caution and try to shield them from additional exposure that could have consequences of unspecified severity,” he said.

In reviewing the appeal, the Oregon Appeal Court will determine whether or not the Oregon Bureau of Labor and Industries violated the Kleins’ constitutional rights to religious freedom, free speech, and due process.

The Kleins maintain that they did not decline the same-sex couple due to their sexual orientation—stating in the brief that they have served one of the women who filed the complaint against them in the past. Instead, they maintain they were only declining to participate in an event that they disagree with because of their Christian beliefs about marriage.

Avakian ruled there is “no distinction” between the two situations.

Klukowski said he expects oral arguments to take place later this year. If the Oregon Court of Appeals rules against the Kleins, the next step would be appealing to the Oregon Supreme Court.

A New Scheme for Syrian Refugees?

Posted on April 26, 2016April 26, 2016 by Denise Simon

Infographic: The screening process for refugee entry into the U.S.
Download graphic

Refugees Welcome graphic — **By the numbers: What you need to know about Syrian refugees in the U.S.**
Download graphic

“Alternative Safe Pathways” for Syrian Refugees – Resettlement in Disguise?

By Nayla Rush

CIS.org: With the Syrian crisis entering its sixth year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is thinking of “innovative approaches” to organize Syrian admissions, alongside the refugee resettlement program, to countries willing to welcome them. UNHCR’s target for resettlement is 480,000 places over the next three years; it is not sure how many additional admissions into the U.S. and elsewhere these new “alternative safe pathways” will ensure. Refugees who are not resettled could be “legally admitted” using various routes described below.

The legitimacy and transparency of these new “alternative pathways,” aimed at admitting increasing numbers of Syrian refugees into the United States without calling them “refugees,” remain to be seen. They might even amount to convenient admissions detours at a time when the U.S. refugee resettlement program is under tight scrutiny.

In a panel discussion on The Global Refugee Crisis: Moral Dimensions and Practical Solutions organized by the Brookings Institution earlier this year, Beth Ferris, Research Professor at Georgetown University and adviser to the United Nations Secretary General on humanitarian refugee policy, talked about the need to find different solutions to the ongoing humanitarian Syrian crisis. The refugee resettlement program was no longer sufficient to admit Syrian refugees she said; “alternative safe pathways” are needed:

Refugees and government officials are expecting this crisis to last 10 or 15 years. It’s time that we no longer work as business as usual … UNHCR next month [March 2016] is convening a meeting to look at what are being called “alternative safe pathways” for Syrian refugees. Maybe it’s hard for the U.S. to go from 2,000 to 200,000 refugees resettled in a year, but maybe there are ways we can ask our universities to offer scholarships to Syrian students. Maybe we can tweak some of our immigration policies to enable Syrian-Americans who have lived here to bring not only their kids and spouses but their uncles and their grandmothers. There may be ways that we could encourage Syrians to come to the U.S. without going through this laborious, time-consuming process of refugee resettlement.” (Emphasis added.)

The UNHCR conference Ferris was referring to took place in Geneva this March 30. It is one of a series of initiatives aimed at comprehensively addressing the Syrian crisis in 2016. The Geneva “High-level meeting on global responsibility sharing through pathways for admission of Syrian refugees” focused on the need for a substantial increase in resettlement numbers and for “innovative approaches” to admit Syrian refugees. It followed February’s London Conference on Syria, which stressed the financial aspect of this humanitarian crisis ($12 billion pledged in humanitarian aid) and precedes a September 2016 high-level plenary meeting of the United Nations General Assembly in New York. Worthy of note here, President Obama will host a global refugee summit this September 20 on the margins of this upcoming General Assembly meeting.

The focus of the Geneva meeting was to introduce “other forms of humanitarian admissions” since “[r]esettlement is not the only aim”, explained UNHCR’s spokesperson. UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi appealed to the international community in his opening statement, calling for “alternative avenues” for the admission of Syrian refugees:

These pathways can take many forms: not only resettlement, but also more flexible mechanisms for family reunification, including extended family members, labour mobility schemes, student visa and scholarships, as well as visa for medical reasons. Resettlement needs vastly outstrip the places that have been made available so far… But humanitarian and student visa, job permits and family reunification would represent safe avenues of admission for many other refugees as well.

At the end of the meeting, Grandi highlighted several commitments made by a number of participants in his closing remarks. Promises were made to:

Increase the number of resettlement and humanitarian admission places.

Ease family reunification and increase possibilities for family reunion.

Give scholarships and student visas for Syrian refugees.

Remove administrative barriers and simplify processes to facilitate and expedite the admission of Syrian refugees.

Use resources provided by the private sector in order to create labor mobility schemes for Syrian refugees.

The Geneva meeting was attended by representatives of 92 countries, including the United States. Heather Higginbottom, Deputy Secretary of State for Management and Resources, reiterated in her remarks the U.S. commitment to refugees: “President Obama has made assisting displaced people a top priority for the U.S. government.” Last year alone the U.S. contributed more than $6 billion to humanitarian causes. So far this year, the United States has provided nearly $2.3 billion in humanitarian assistance worldwide. She also announced additional measures: “We are further increasing our support of Syrian refugees, and we will make additional contributions to the global displacement effort through September, and beyond”, while reminding the participants of President Obama’s role in hosting a high-level refugee summit this September.

The U.S. State Department released a Media Note following the Geneva meeting. It confirmed the goal of resettling at least 10,000 Syrians in FY 2016 and of 100,000 refugees from around the world by the end of FY 2017 – an increase of more that 40 percent since FY 2015. It also announced the following:

“The United States pledged an additional $10 million to UNHCR to strengthen its efforts to identify and refer vulnerable refugees, including Syrians, for resettlement.”

“The United States joins UNHCR in calling for new ways nations, civil society, the private sector, and individuals can together address the global refugee challenge.”

“Additionally, the United States has created a program to allow U.S. citizens and permanent residents to file refugee applications for their Syrian family member.” [Emphasis added.]

On this last note, why create a family reunification program for Syrian refugees when refugees in the U.S. are already entitled to ask for their spouse and unmarried children under 21 to join them? Unless of course, the aim is to widen family circles to include aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, grandmothers and grandfathers.

Let’s see if we got this right: More Syrian refugees are to be resettled in the United States; administrative barriers (including security checks?) are to be removed to expedite admissions. Come to think of it, this is exactly what we witnessed with the “Surge Operation” in Jordan, where refugee resettlement processes were reduced from 18-24 months to three months in order to meet the target of 10,000 Syrian refugees this year.

Moreover, the United States government, by its own admission, “joins UNHCR in calling for new ways” to move more Syrians to other countries. With the U.S. Refugee Resettlement program under close scrutiny, other routes for “legal admissions” (not “resettlement”) of Syrian refugees into the United States seem more appropriate. Those routes may vary from private sponsorships, labor schemes, expanded family reunification programs, humanitarian visas, medical evacuation, to academic scholarships and apprenticeships, etc.

What remains to be determined is how transparent these “alternative pathways” will be. Will we be given details about numbers, profiles, locations, screening, or costs? Also, what additional measures are we to expect from this administration as it prepares to host a Global Refugee Summit this September 20?

Meanwhile, we are left to wonder: aren’t these “pathways” for refugees nothing more than disguised resettlement routes? Akin to “pathways to citizenship” in lieu of amnesty…

Documents Show Assad’s Oil Deals with ISIS

Posted on April 26, 2016April 26, 2016 by Denise Simon

ISIS’s Multimillion-Dollar Oil Deals With Assad Regime Uncovered in U.S. Special Forces Raid

Newsweek: The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has negotiated multimillion-dollar oil deals with the Islamic State militant group (ISIS), new documents retrieved from a U.S. raid against the radical Islamists’ oil chief have revealed.

A U.S. special forces raid on ISIS’s oil minister—known by his nom de guerre Abu Sayyaf—in May 2015 saw the extraction of thousands of documents implicating his oil operation with that of the Assad regime, with revenue from the sale of oil to Damascus helping the group to reach a peak of $40 million a month in oil revenue, according to documents seen by The Wall Street Journal.

Sayyaf led the group’s oil ministry, known as the Diwan of Natural Resources, and used deals with the Syrian regime to boost the division’s income, contributing 72 percent of $289.5 million the group earned in natural-resource revenues in the six months preceding February 2015.

A document identified as Memo No. 156, dated February 11, 2015, from the trove of documents extracted from Sayyaf’s Deir Ezzor hideout shows that the Tunisian national requested assistance from an unknown party on how to build investment links with businessmen allied to the Assad regime.

The document states that ISIS already had agreements in place with Damascus that permitted trucks to move from oil fields under the authority of the regime to travel through ISIS-controlled territory. Two former ISIS oil managers also told the The Wall Street Journal that the group had made deals with businessman connected to the Syrian regime.

In the raid, U.S. special forces traveled from Iraq to eastern Syria, where they killed ISIS militants guarding his compound before assassinating Sayyaf. The forces took his wife Umm Sayyaf into custody and transferred her to the hands of Kurdish control.

In their sweep across eastern Syria in late 2013 and early 2014, ISIS seized some of Syria’s key oil fields in the Deir Ezzor province, such as al-Tanak and al-Omar. The group lost its first major oil field in Syria, al-Jasbah, where it was producing 3,000 barrels of oil a day, to Syrian-Kurdish forces in January. The U.S.-led coalition is also targeting the group’s oil fields, significantly reducing its ability to refine lucrative oil and sell it to shadowy buyers.

*****

In 2014: Officials from the Iraqi oil industry have said that ISIS reaps $1 million per day in Iraq in oil profits and that if they get the Syrian fields in [areas where they’re advancing], the total would be $100 million per month for both Iraq and Syria combined. They sell it for $30 a barrel because it’s a black market. It’s not pegged to international standards for oil prices, which are over $100 a barrel. The oil is bought through Turkey from Syria, and it’s sold to black market traders who function throughout the Levant.

ISIS’s strategy seems to have evolved around generating income. ISIS raises money in several ways, but oil is certainly a part of that. For a long time, they avoided having much direct confrontation with the regime. They generally tended to turn their fire against other rebel groups. They had been selling to the regime, or basically anyone who’d pay for it. But recently it seems like they are taking a more aggressive approach, like with the attack on Shaar. Were they just attacking it to destroy it [to hit the regime], or to take it over and continue selling gas? It’s not clear what their intention was.

If ISIS truly has destroyed fields there, it means the [regime’s] gas supply will be cut off. It’s already down to half of pre-war levels, and this will cause more power cuts and electricity cuts in Damascus. It means the regime will have to use more expensive fuel from Iran. It means more suffering for [civilians], and this perhaps will undercut support there for the regime. And it makes it very hard to have any prospect of the economy recovering.

ISIS, which has an illegal oil export scheme that derives revenue. It seems now that [oil in Syria] is up for grabs and ISIS started this trend [of fighting for it]. It is likely that other groups such as Nusra will try to follow.

As the Islamic State is established, it’s clear that ISIS wants to have all parts of their government and revenue sources well organized, and that energy exports are part of this scheme. The scheme includes the collection of taxes, but also other black market activities like trade in other illegal goods the group plunders from the land it captures. Given the call by [ISIS leader Abu Bakr] Baghdadi on the first day of Ramadan –asking for consolidation of the state and the recruitment of individuals to help run that state – you have to figure that the energy sector figures into his planning. Read full interview in context here.