Business
Column: Republican states would rather keep poisoning children with lead than pay for a fix
Here are a few things we know about lead in drinking water:
◆ There is no known safe level. More than a decade ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ceased setting minimum acceptable standards for children’s blood lead levels.
That was because scientific studies couldn’t identify any concentration that didn’t have “deleterious effects” on children’s health. The only proper approach, the CDC said, is prevention “to ensure that no children in the U.S.” face any exposure to lead.
Lead exposure causes damage to the brain and kidneys and may interfere with the production of red blood cells that carry oxygen to all parts of the body.
— Environmental Protection Agency
◆ Removing all the sources of lead exposure is expensive, but over the long term a sound investment, for it eliminates long-term effects that lead to massive healthcare costs, cognitive deficits and higher crime rates.
◆ Children in low-income and minority neighborhoods are the most seriously affected, because their families have few options to avoid exposure. The lead crisis in Flint, Mich., erupted as a national scandal in 2011, but it was the tip of the iceberg.
◆ Industry has been opposing abatement programs for decades — in California, for instance, three companies that produced and promoted lead paint for homes fought a 19-year legal battle to evade the costs of residential abatement. They finally reached a $305-million settlement with several counties and cities in 2019.
That brings us to the latest initiative by the Republican attorneys general of 15 red states, aimed at stifling a lead abatement initiative of the Biden administration.
Led by Kansas Atty. Gen. Kris W. Kobach, they’ve taken aim at a proposal by the Environmental Protection Agency to order the removal of some 9 million lead water lines across the country. The rule conforms with an action plan Biden issued in 2021 aimed at replacing 100% of the lead water lines serving homes in the U.S.
You may remember Kobach’s name from his adventures waging various right-wing culture battles, all of which he lost — often at the expense of the localities that followed his lead as Kansas secretary of state. These included failed efforts to enact draconian anti-immigration ordinances.
In 2018, Kobach suffered a mortifying defeat at the hands of a federal judge who overturned a Kansas law he championed that required proof of citizenship to vote. The judge further held him in contempt for repeatedly flouting courtroom procedure.
Kobach lost races for governor in 2018 and the U.S. Senate in 2020, but managed to win a race for attorney general in 2022. From that perch he has been pressing his new cause — exposing Kansans to lead in their drinking water.
In a comment letter to the EPA, Kobach and his colleagues call the proposed rule “unworkable, underfunded, and unnecessary.” They also say the benefits “may be … entirely speculative.”
They suggest it’s an infringement of states’ rights, which is an argument that has seldom been heard since the Civil War.
The Kobach cabal, which encompasses the attorneys general of Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Iowa, Mississippi, Montana, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Wyoming, further asserted that private homeowners would “bear the brunt of the costs.”
With one exception, all these claims are false. The one true assertion is that the mandate is underfunded. Estimates of the cost of meeting the EPA’s proposal run from about $45 billion to $60 billion.
Biden’s 2021 infrastructure bill allocated $15 billion for the purpose — but he originally proposed $45 billion, which was pared down in congressional negotiations.
As for the rest, obviously the rule isn’t “unworkable.” The EPA proposes to give localities and utilities 10 years to complete the mandated replacements, averaging 10% of the work per year. The red states say that’s an unreasonably “tight timeline.” But the rule makes municipalities with especially numerous lead pipes, such as Chicago, Cleveland, New York and Detroit, eligible for extensions.
The technology and engineering necessary for the job are well understood. Newark, N.J., replaced its more than 23,000 lead water lines via a three-year, $170-million program that commenced in 2019, all at no direct cost to homeowners — despite what Kobach et al. claimed. Green Bay, Wis., completed the replacement of its 2,000 lead lines in 2020, after a five-year effort that also required no out-of-pocket spending by homeowners.
Is it “unnecessary”? Are the benefits “speculative”? Surely not.
The adverse health impacts of lead in drinking water are absolutely indisputable. The EPA’s proposed rule spelled them out, with citations to the relevant scientific data.
“Lead exposure causes damage to the brain and kidneys and may interfere with the production of red blood cells that carry oxygen to all parts of the body,” the proposal stated. “The most susceptible life-stages are the developing fetus, infants, and young children…. Because they are growing, children’s bodies absorb more lead than adults do, and their brains and nervous systems are more sensitive to its damaging effects. As a result, even low-level lead exposure is of particular concern to children.”
As for the special vulnerability of children in low-income communities to these conditions, a 2021 study in JAMA Pediatrics found that children in those communities are nearly 2.5 times as likely to have elevated blood lead levels compared with those in low-poverty areas.
Another 2021 study found that Black infants suffered a 50% higher average loss of IQ points attributable to blood lead than white or Hispanic infants, costing them an estimated loss in lifetime earnings of more than $47,000.
These considerations should make the eradication of lead from drinking water a major goal for a party that claims to be devoted to the health and welfare of children, even before infancy. But actions speak louder than words, and the actions of Republicans tell us that they care a lot more about money than about children.
Let’s start with the lead water pipe rule that the new EPA proposal aims to replace. The old rule was promulgated by the EPA under Trump. It was issued on Jan. 15, 2021, five days before Trump left office.
The Trump rule left in place a preexisting standard of 15 parts per billion of lead in water that had been the trigger for lead pipe removal. That was three times the level deemed the maximum allowable in Canada and the European Union, the Natural Resources Defense Council reported.
The Trump rule also extended the deadline for pulling out lines in the most heavily contaminated systems to 33 years, from 14. The NRDC estimated that the weakened standards would leave more than 5.5 million people exposed to heavily contaminated drinking water for decades to come.
The Biden administration suspended the Trump proposal upon taking office. That won support from the attorneys general of eight states, including California and the District of Columbia, who rightly labeled exposure to lead “a public health issue of paramount importance.”
The proposal being challenged by the Republican attorneys general is its replacement. It accepts no compromise in pulling the most dangerous sources of lead poisoning out of the ground.
No one disputes that eliminating lead from drinking water is an expensive undertaking. But if Kobach and his colleagues are really concerned that the EPA rule is an “unfunded mandate,” as they label it in their comment letter, there’s an obvious solution: They should turn their political influence to persuading their congressional delegations to funding it.
Those 15 states have 30 senators among them (all but three Republicans) and 118 House members (83 of whom are Republicans). That would be a good start at getting billions more appropriated to cover removal of every lead pipe in the country. If they truly care about the children, what are they waiting for?
Business
Devin Nunes Departs Trump Media After 4 Years as C.E.O.
President Trump’s social media company, which has consistently lost money and struggled with a flagging share price, announced Tuesday that it was replacing Devin Nunes as its chief executive officer.
The announcement offered no reason for the sudden departure of Mr. Nunes, a former Republican congressman from California. Mr. Trump had tapped him to run the company, Trump Media & Technology, in late 2021.
The announcement was made in a news release by the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who is a company board member and oversees a trust that controls his father’s 115-million-share stake in Trump Media. President Trump is not an officer or director of the company.
Mr. Nunes said in a statement on Truth Social, which is Trump Media’s flagship product, that it was an “appropriate time” for a new leader with experience in media and mergers to “steer Trump Media through its current transition phase.”
Trump Media has incurred hundreds of millions in losses, and its shares have performed poorly since the company went public by completing a merger with a cash-rich special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, in March 2024. The stock, which ended its first day of trading around $58 a share, closed Tuesday at $9.82.
Shares of Trump Media trade under the symbol DJT, which are President Trump’s initials. Truth Social has emerged as the main social media platform for Mr. Trump to communicate his policy decisions and opinions to the world.
Last year, Trump Media took in $3.7 million in revenue and recorded a $712 million net loss.
In December, Trump Media announced a plan to merge with TAE Technologies, a fusion power company. The all-stock deal, which was valued at $6 billion at the time, would create one of the first publicly traded nuclear fusion companies.
Trump Media said in February that it was considering spinning off its Truth Social platform in a merger with another cash-rich SPAC, Texas Ventures Acquisition III Corp.
Mr. Nunes is being replaced on an interim basis by Kevin McGurn, who has been an adviser to Trump Media since the end of 2024. Mr. McGurn, a former executive at Hulu, the streaming service, was listed in a recent regulatory filing as the chief executive of Texas Ventures.
The Trump Media release announcing the management change provided no update on the merger with TAE Technologies or the proposed SPAC deal for Truth Social.
Business
Netflix plans to buy historic Radford Studio Center
Streaming entertainment giant Netflix is in negotiations to buy the historic Radford Studio Center lot in Studio City.
Netflix plans to purchase the Los Angeles studio that has been home to generations of landmark television shows, including “Gunsmoke” and “Seinfeld,” according to two people with knowledge of the pending deal who were not authorized to speak about it publicly.
The studio’s previous operator, Hackman Capital Partners, defaulted on a $1.1-billion mortgage in January. Investment bank Goldman Sachs took over the property and is in talks with Netflix to sell it for between $330 million and $400 million.
Representatives for Hackman and Netflix declined to comment on the planned sale.
Culver City-based Hackman Capital Partners and Square Mile Capital Management teamed up to buy the Radford Avenue property from ViacomCBS in 2021 with a winning bid of $1.85 billion, after a competitive battle for the 55-acre studio beloved by the television industry.
At the time, the staggering price tag underscored the value — and scarcity — of TV soundstages in Los Angeles as content producers scrambled for space to shoot TV shows and movies to stock their streaming services. It was one of the largest-ever real estate transactions for a TV studio complex in Los Angeles.
Since then, production has substantially declined in Southern California. L.A. continues to battle the loss of production to other states and countries, as well as the lingering effects on the industry of the pandemic and the 2023 dual writers’ and actors’ strikes. Cutbacks in spending at the major studios after a surge in streaming-fueled TV production have further damped film activity in the region.
Founded by silent film comedy legend Mack Sennett in 1928, the lot became known as “Hit City” in the decades after World War II as popular TV shows such as “Leave It to Beaver,” “Gilligan’s Island,” “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Will & Grace” were made there. The storied lot gave the Studio City neighborhood its name,
Netflix, which has a market cap of about $455 billion — more than double that of Walt Disney Co. — has maintained its dominance in the global streaming business with more than 325 million subscribers.
The Los Gatos-based company has production offices worldwide, including facilities in Albuquerque, Brooklyn, London, Madrid and Toronto.
Netflix had secured an $82.7-billion deal to buy Warner Bros. studios and streaming services in December, but withdrew from the bidding war in late February after Paramount Skydance offered $31 a share. As part of the switch, Netflix was paid a $2.8-billion termination fee.
Business
Kevin Warsh, Trump’s Pick to Lead Fed, Faces Senate at Tricky Moment
Kevin M. Warsh, President Trump’s pick to lead the Federal Reserve, has spent years refining his pitch for why he should get one of the most powerful economic jobs in the world.
At his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, he will have to convince Senate lawmakers that he is ready to step into the role, which has become politically explosive amid Mr. Trump’s relentless attacks on the institution and its current chair, Jerome H. Powell.
Mr. Warsh, who is scheduled to testify before the Banking Committee at 10 a.m., plans to commit to being “strictly independent” on decisions related to interest rates, according to his prepared remarks. He also plans to tell lawmakers that he is unbothered by Mr. Trump’s incessant calls for substantially lower borrowing costs. And he will use his opening statement to underscore his focus on disrupting the “status quo” at an institution he said just last year was in need of “regime change.”
“In a time that will rank among the most consequential in our nation’s history, I believe a reform-oriented Federal Reserve can make a real difference to the American people,” he plans to tell lawmakers, adding: “The stakes could scarcely be higher.”
Mr. Warsh, 56, faces significant hurdles to winning confirmation. He has broad support among Republicans, who control the Senate and can confirm him along party lines. Yet his candidacy has stalled because of an ongoing investigation by the Justice Department into Mr. Powell and his handling of the Fed’s headquarters renovations.
Mr. Powell’s term as chair ends May 15, but Mr. Warsh looks increasingly unlikely to be in place by then. That’s because Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina — a Republican on the Banking Committee who has expressed support for Mr. Warsh — has vowed to block any attempt to confirm a new Fed chair until the legal threats into Mr. Powell are resolved. For Mr. Tillis, the investigation is a blatant attempt to coerce Mr. Powell into lowering rates, undermining the Fed’s independence and confirming the politicization of the Justice Department.
“I’m not going to condone bad decision-making and bad behavior,” Mr. Tillis told reporters on Monday in reference to the Justice Department’s lack of evidence of any wrongdoing.
The department has vowed to continue its investigation, despite numerous legal setbacks.
“I think ultimately, he will be confirmed,” Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana, another Republican on the committee, told reporters on Monday. “I just don’t know what decade.”
Mr. Warsh’s ascent would mark a homecoming for the Wall Street financier, who served as a Fed governor from 2006-11.
Since leaving the Fed, he has amassed assets worth well in excess of $100 million, according to financial disclosures submitted before his hearing. Those have drawn scrutiny because Mr. Warsh repeatedly invoked “pre-existing confidentiality agreements” to avoid disclosing the details behind several of his investments. He has said he would divest a substantial amount of his assets before taking the job.
The global financial crisis dominated Mr. Warsh’s first tenure at the Fed, thrusting him into the middle of discussions about how the central bank should respond to the threat of bank failures, turmoil in financial markets and a painful recession that followed. Mr. Warsh, then the youngest-ever member of the Board of Governors, was initially supportive of the Fed’s efforts to shore up financial markets by buying enormous quantities of government bonds and expanding its balance sheet to ease strains in financial markets and support growth by keeping market-based rates low.
But he soon soured on subsequent efforts to buy more bonds and resigned in protest. That experience has stuck with Mr. Warsh, who has made a smaller balance sheet a pillar of his plans if he takes over as chair.
Mr. Warsh would also be likely to usher in changes to how the Fed communicates its policy views, having expressed misgivings about its strategy of providing so-called forward guidance, or hints about how interest rates may change in the future to guide expectations. He has also suggested that policymakers across the Fed system should speak far less. Mr. Powell held a news conference after each rate decision, or eight a year, and delivered speeches with regularity. Mr. Trump’s pick to join the Fed last year, Stephen I. Miran, often speaks multiple times a week.
“Once policymakers reveal their economic forecast, they can become prisoners of their own words,” Mr. Warsh said in a speech last year. “Fed leaders would be well served to skip opportunities to share their latest musings. The swivel-chair problem, rhetorically waxing and waning with the latest data release, is common and counterproductive.”
What is far less clear is how much Mr. Warsh would heed the president’s demands for lower interest rates. Mr. Trump said he would not pick someone for chair who did not support lower borrowing costs.
Mr. Warsh sought in his opening statement to downplay the costs of a president’s voicing his opinions about rates, saying central bankers must be “strong enough to listen to a diversity of views from all corners, humble enough to be open-minded to new ideas and new economic developments, wise enough to translate imperfect data into meaningful insight and dedicated enough to make judgments faithfully and wisely.”
Earlier this year, many officials at the Fed saw a path to gradually lower rates as the impact of Mr. Trump’s tariffs faded and inflation restarted its slide back toward 2 percent after almost of year of stalling out. The war in Iran — and the energy shock it has unleashed — has upended those forecasts, however, prompting officials to turn wary about lowering rates.
Mr. Warsh will face questions on Tuesday about the economic impact of the war and how it has changed his thinking around the Fed’s ability to lower rates. While at the Fed, he was known as an inflation hawk who often argued against providing policy relief for fear that it could stoke price pressures. He also said the Fed should aspire to engage in rule-based policymaking that stems from formulas that prescribe how officials should set rates based on levels of inflation and employment.
While campaigning to be chair, Mr. Warsh embraced the need for rate cuts, arguing that there was a path for lower borrowing costs because of his plans to shrink the balance sheet, which would lift longer-term rates that then could be offset by lowering short-term ones. He also argued that higher productivity from the boom in artificial intelligence could unleash higher growth without stoking inflation, which could give the Fed more space to lower rates than otherwise would be the case.
In his opening statement, Mr. Warsh made clear, however, that a failure to bring down inflation, which has been stuck above the Fed’s 2 percent target for roughly five years, would strictly be the Fed’s fault, suggesting that he would shoulder the blame if he did not bring it back down during his tenure.
“Inflation is a choice, and the Fed must take responsibility for it,” he will tell lawmakers.
Megan Mineiro contributed reporting.
-
New York1 hour agoTrump’s Immigration Crackdown Pervades Long Island Suburbs
-
Detroit, MI2 hours agoChris Simms projects Detroit Lions first-round NFL draft pick
-
San Francisco, CA2 hours agoSan Francisco sets $3.4B price tag for public takeover of PG&E
-
Dallas, TX2 hours agoGame Day Guide: Stars at Wild | Dallas Stars
-
Miami, FL2 hours agoMay a steadying presence as Cards hold off Marlins in Miami
-
Boston, MA2 hours agoTyrese Maxey, VJ Edgecombe flex in Boston: Takeaways from Celtics-76ers Game 2
-
Denver, CO2 hours agoMotorcyclist seriously injured in Denver hit-and-run crash – AOL
-
Seattle, WA3 hours agoBrock: 2 drafts fits at edge rusher for Seattle Seahawks