Catalonia Independence Fight Produces Some Odd Bedfellows
October 10, 2017 by admin
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The decision was complicated further on Monday by a stark warning from a spokesman for the governing party of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy of Spain that Carles Puigdemont, the leader of Catalonia, could be charged with insurrection if he declared independence. The spokesman, Pablo Casado, even drew an analogy with the fate of Lluís Companys, a Catalan leader who was imprisoned for proclaiming a Catalan state in 1934, shortly before Spain’s civil war.
The separatists must now decide whether to declare independence despite the resistance of Madrid and of leading politicians in the European Union. Chancellor Angela Merkel underscored Germany’s support for a united Spain in a weekend phone conversation with Mr. Rajoy.
The foundations of the independence movement have been shaky from the start. To achieve a pro-independence majority in the Catalan Parliament in 2015, the largest political group at the time – the conservative and recently renamed Catalan European Democratic Party – ran on a joint election platform with its main left-wing rival, as well as with a minor Christian democratic party and a small group of social democrats.
This odd union was supported by some prominent Catalans like Pep Guardiola, a celebrated soccer coach, as well as the two main citizens movements that have organized mass street rallies in favor of independence since 2012.
But the separatist coalition fell short of a parliamentary majority, allowing a small and leaderless far-left party, Popular Unity Candidacy, to step in and play the role of kingmaker in a Catalan Parliament dominated by separatists. The party is determined to secede swiftly, but disagrees profoundly with other separatists on how to then shape a new Catalan republic, starting with its rejection of the euro as a currency.
The alliance is facing a major test on Tuesday, when separatist lawmakers are expected to vote on a unilateral declaration of independence.
Hard-line and far-left separatists want a decisive and rapid break from Mr. Rajoy’s national government, following the highly controversial Catalan referendum on Oct. 1 that had been suspended by Spain’s constitutional court.
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But Mr. Puigdemont wants to keep on board the more moderate representatives of his own party, some of whom have grown wary about recent announcements of a corporate exodus from Catalonia. Ada Colau, the left-wing mayor of Barcelona, also called on Monday on both Mr. Puigdemont and Mr. Rajoy to take a step back rather than escalate the crisis.
The situation “is perhaps a little bit curious,” said Jordi Cuixart, the head of Omnium Cultural, one of the two citizens associations that has been organizing the separatist rallies. “The pro-independence movement has all different social sensibilities – from left to right, including pro-liberal, socialist and communist.”
To further complicate the picture, the broader independence coalition includes a far-left youth movement, Arran, which hopes independence will break the neoliberal economic order that it also holds responsible for problems like the rising rental prices in Barcelona tied to tourism. Last summer, as part of antitourism protests, members of Arran slashed the tires of a tour bus and daubed it with graffiti.
Mr. Puigdemont’s Catalan European Democratic Party “is our class enemy – we are against them,” said Mar Ampurdanès, Arran’s spokeswoman. “But now we have a historic moment to break the Spanish regime, so we’re with them.”
After Spain’s return to democracy in the late 1970s, Jordi Pujol founded Convergence, a conservative party that became the flag-bearer of Catalan nationalism. During his 23 years as the Catalan president, Mr. Pujol acted as a buffer between the Madrid government and more hard-line Catalan separatists, squeezing concessions and more autonomy from Madrid without ever calling for Catalan independence.
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Mr. Puigdemont’s party is the successor to Convergence, but is a shadow of its former self, mired by corruption scandals and a tax fraud confession from Mr. Pujol himself. In fact, left-wing parties have been spearheading the independence movement since 2015, leaving Mr. Puigdemont as a captain under the permanent threat of parliamentary mutiny from the Popular Unity Candidacy.
“It has not been easy,” said Sergi Miguel, a lawmaker from Mr. Puigdemont’s party. The prospect of independence “is the only thing that keeps us together.” Some other issues, he added, are simply not discussed because lawmakers “know it would be a war.”
Mr. Puigdemont owes his job to a last-minute compromise with hard-line separatists who demanded the ouster of the previous Catalan leader, Artur Mas. Mr. Puigdemont, a former journalist, was seen as a more suitable choice in part because of his long track record of secessionism.
Since then, Mr. Puigdemont’s party has also had to accept left-wing demands over policies linked to education and support for low-income families, while winning in return support for a Catalan budget that hard-line separatists threatened to scuttle.
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Quim Arrufat, a leading voice within the Popular Unity Candidacy, acknowledged that Mr. Puigdemont’s party had “agreed to things we would never have imagined.” But he still insisted that “we have compromised the most,” citing his party’s agreement not to scupper this year’s budget.
Some see the diverse nature of the independence movement as an asset, guarding it against accusations of xenophobia and extremism. “This diversity makes us stronger and makes us better,” said Benet Salellas, a Popular Unity Candidacy lawmaker.
Catalan separatism also brings together some lawmakers who are not affiliated with any of the main parties but instead represent the different migrant communities that have helped transform the Catalan population, including a mass exodus from poorer parts of Spain to Catalonia in the decades after the civil war.
“The fact that we don’t all agree on what kind of Catalan republic we want is not a weakness, but proof that we all want the new Catalonia to be much modern than Spain — and very, very democratic,” said Eduardo Reyes Pino, a lawmaker who helped launch Súmate, a pro-independence association for Spanish-speaking Catalans.
In the immensely tense current climate, as Mr. Puigdemont weighs whether and when to declare independence from Spain, the movement’s diversity has nevertheless led to differences over the best course of action, Mr. Salellas said.
Some on the right of the movement argue that “perhaps we don’t need to make any kind of declaration,” said Mr. Salellas. “And there are some people who want to make some kind of light declaration. And then there is us.”
If there is any hesitation, then Barcelona should expect further civil disobedience, said Ms. Ampurdanès of Arran, the far-left youth movement.
“Not just to pressure the Spanish government,” she said, “but to pressure the main Catalan parties to accomplish what they promised.”
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Trump Plays Down Health Hazard in Justifying Climate Rule Repeal
October 10, 2017 by admin
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When President Barack Obama unveiled his plan to pare emissions from U.S. power plants two years ago, he stressed the long-term health benefits: 3,600 fewer premature deaths, 90,000 fewer asthma attacks in children and a decline in hospital visits.
Now, the Trump administration is justifying its rollback of the Clean Power Plan by arguing its predecessor exaggerated the public health gains.
The Environmental Protection Agency will formally begin undoing Obama’s plan on Tuesday, a process that includes revising some of its underlying calculations to emphasize costs and minimize benefits. Among the casualties: long-held conclusions about how microscopic air pollution jeopardizes human health.
“They are putting their thumb on the scales and changing the math enough so they can say the costs aren’t justified for the Clean Power Plan,” said Conrad Schneider, advocacy director for the Clean Air Task Force, an environmental group that supports the initiative. “It’s a game of trying to reach a predetermined outcome.”
The exercise is necessary because the 71-year-old Administrative Procedure Act that governs federal rulemaking bars policy pivots that are “arbitrary and capricious.” That means agencies must provide good legal and policy explanations for rescinding regulations. President Donald Trump’s administration is set to do the same thing to justify repealing other Obama-era rules, including limits on methane leaks from oil wells.
Earlier: Trump Seen Replacing Obama Power Plant Overhaul With Tuneup
EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said Monday the administration was about to take the first formal step to repeal the Clean Power Plan, which aimed to cut U.S. carbon dioxide emissions 32 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. The initiative mandated states make broad changes in their overall electricity mix, mostly by displacing coal-fired power plants with that from wind, solar and natural gas.
“The rule really was about picking winners and losers,” Pruitt told a group of coal miners in Hazard, Kentucky. “The past administration was unapologetic: They were using every bit of power every bit of authority to use the EPA to pick winners and losers in how we generate electricity in this country — and that’s wrong.”
In proposing to repeal the Clean Power Plan, the Trump administration is asserting that the EPA overstepped its legal authority in forcing sweeping changes in the nation’s energy mix, while relying on a cost-benefit analysis that was “highly uncertain” and “controversial” in the way it linked air pollution to sickness and premature death.
Related: Trump Is Said to Argue Obama Clean Power Plan Violates Law
The replacement analysis acts to increase the potential costs of complying with the rule while downplaying the benefits it would deliver to public health and the environment.
The previous EPA assumed significant health benefits would spring from reducing the amount of soot that is belched from coal plants. When inhaled, that fine particulate matter — 1/70th the width of human hair — can penetrate deep into lungs and sometimes into the blood stream, exacerbating heart and lung diseases, causing asthma attacks and sometimes leading to premature death.
The EPA has historically said there is no safe threshold for particulate matter, a conclusion that dovetails with a series of public health studies and underlies a host of other federal regulations governing power plant pollution.
The Trump administration, however, is preparing to assert that the potential health benefits of cutting that pollution ends at a certain point — when levels are cut to match a national standard or a threshold examined in two long-term health studies, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg.
Discount Benefits
So, the EPA is set to discount the potential value and health benefits that could stem from driving that pollution down even more. That change would cut the expected benefits of the Clean Power Plan, helping make the case that the costs of the rule outweigh those potential gains.
“This is a pretty radical step for the EPA,” said Kevin Steinberger, a policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “All the scientific evidence we have suggests there’s no limit at which exposure to particulate matter is not dangerous to human health.”
Obama’s EPA relied on the assumption that there are health benefits at reducing particulate matter down to zero, “so no matter how much you reduce it, you will get benefits,” said Andres Restrepo, a Sierra Club staff attorney focusing on air pollution and climate change. “That’s been standard practice.”
Conservatives who have criticized the EPA’s approach under Obama said the Trump administration is right to reevaluate that assumption. Myron Ebell, director of the Center for Energy and Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, said he would prefer Trump’s EPA go further and not count the “co-benefits” of reducing fine particulate matter when the real aim is curbing carbon dioxide.
“If these illusory co-benefits are going to be counted, then we think that it is entirely appropriate to cut them off for levels below the national ambient air quality standards,” Ebell said. “That level has been set at what has been determined to be safe for human health. How can there be a health benefit below the safe level?”
True Costs
EPA spokeswoman Liz Bowman cast the Trump analysis as more defensible.
“The facts are that the Obama administration’s estimates and analysis of costs and benefits was, in multiple areas, highly uncertain and/or controversial,” Bowman said by email. “The Trump administration is, in a robust, open, and transparent way, presenting a wide range of analysis scenarios to the public.”
The Trump administration’s math also helps diminish the potential benefits the Clean Power Plan would deliver by focusing those calculations on what happens inside U.S. borders, instead of across the globe. And, it’s changing the way it calculates present-day costs based on projected long-term benefits. The higher the so-called discount rate, the lower the estimate of harm.
Increasing Costs
The Trump administration is also making other changes to the way the government accounts for the costs of complying with the rule. That math yields real differences. For instance, while the Obama administration touted an $8.4 billion price tag, the Trump administration’s math yields a compliance cost of more than $33 billion.
“This is a way for them to say the cost of the rule are huge, and really significant and really a burden, when in reality, they’re using the same numbers EPA used in 2015 — they’ve just moved things around,” Steinberger said.
Ebell said it was the Obama administration that employed faulty accounting, and the change restores standard practice. “How could anyone object to removing trickery from the regulatory process?” he said.
Recent analysis suggests the costs of satisfying Obama’s Clean Power Plan actually have gone down, as the U.S. makes strides toward meeting its carbon-cutting targets and less-polluting energy sources such as wind, solar and natural gas prove less expensive than anticipated. The U.S. is already well on the path to achieving the Clean Power Plan’s headline goal of cutting carbon dioxide emissions 32 percent by 2030.
The regulation now looks like “a real bargain,” said David Doniger, director of the NRDC’s Climate and Clean Air program. “The Clean Power Plan would have achieved a 32 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions at what now it looks like at an increasingly minimal cost.”