October 2022 - cypherpunks - lists.cpunks.org

Directors Resign from the Boards of Five Companies in Response to Justice Department Concerns about Potentially Illegal Interlocking Directorates
by Gunnar Larson 19 Oct '22

19 Oct '22

https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/directors-resign-boards-five-companies-respo… Wednesday, October 19, 2022 Directors Resign from the Boards of Five Companies in Response to Justice Department Concerns about Potentially Illegal Interlocking Directorates Resignations Reflect Antitrust Division’s Efforts to Reinvigorate Enforcement and Deter Violations of Section 8 of the Clayton Act WASHINGTON - The Justice Department announced today that seven directors have resigned from corporate board positions in response to concerns by the Antitrust Division that their roles violated the Clayton Act’s prohibition on interlocking directorates. Section 8 of the Clayton Act (Section 8) prohibits directors and officers from serving simultaneously on the boards of competitors, subject to limited exceptions. Over the last several months, the Division announced its intent to reinvigorate Section 8 enforcement. This announcement is the first in a broader review of potentially unlawful interlocking directorates. “Section 8 is an important, but underenforced, part of our antitrust laws. Congress made interlocking directorates a *per se* violation of the antitrust laws for good reason. Competitors sharing officers or directors further concentrates power and creates the opportunity to exchange competitively sensitive information and facilitate coordination – all to the detriment of the economy and the American public,” said Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter of the Justice Department’s Antitrust Division. “The Antitrust Division is undertaking an extensive review of interlocking directorates across the entire economy and will enforce the law.” By eliminating the opportunity to coordinate – explicitly or implicitly – through interlocking directorates, Section 8 is also intended to prevent other violations of the antitrust laws before they occur. In response to the Division’s competition concerns, the following companies and directors unwound the interlocks without admitting to liability: 1. *Definitive Healthcare Corp. and ZoomInfo Technologies Inc. *– Definitive and ZoomInfo operate go-to-market information and intelligence platforms used by third-party sales, marketing, operations, and recruiting teams across the United States. One director served simultaneously on the boards of both companies and resigned from Definitive’s board in response to the Division’s concerns about the alleged interlock. 1. *Maxar Technologies Inc. and Redwire Corp. *– Maxar and Redwire are providers of space infrastructure and communications products and services. One director served simultaneously on the boards of both companies and resigned from Redwire’s board in response to the Division’s concerns about the alleged interlock. 1. *Littelfuse Inc. and CTS Corp.* – Littelfuse and CTS are manufacturers of components and technologies for use in transportation applications, including sensors and switches for use in passenger and commercial vehicles. One director served simultaneously on the boards of both companies and resigned from CTS’s board in response to the Division’s concerns about the alleged interlock. 1. *Skillsoft Corp. and Udemy Inc. *– Skillsoft and Udemy are providers of online corporate education services. One director served simultaneously on the boards of both companies, as did the investment firm Prosus, through that director, because he represented Prosus on both boards at the same time. The director resigned from Udemy’s board in response to the Division’s concerns about the alleged interlock. 1. *Solarwinds Corp. and Dynatrace, Inc. *– Solarwinds and Dynatrace are providers of Application Performance Monitoring (APM) software. One director served simultaneously on the boards of both companies, as did the investment firm Thoma Bravo, through this director, because he represented Thoma Bravo on both boards at the same time. Two additional directors also represented Thoma Bravo on the Solarwinds's board. All three directors resigned from Solarwinds’s board in response to the Division’s concerns about the alleged interlock. Companies, officers, and board members should expect that enforcement of Section 8 will continue to be a priority for the Antitrust Division. Anyone with information about potential interlocking directorates or any other potential violations of the antitrust laws is encouraged to contact the Antitrust Division’s Citizen Complaint Center at 1-888-647-3258 or antitrust.complaints(a)usdoj.gov.

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Re: [ot] What I am doing for Biosignals Logging atm
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 19 Oct '22

19 Oct '22

including list, which i didnt do by accident On 10/19/22, Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many <gmkarl(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Hey, I’m not sure what you’re referring to, so I’ll just state what I > perceive on my end. > > On 10/19/22, HisName <hisname(a)protonmail.com> wrote: >> Disregard the stupidity of my last reply to this thread. I apologize for >> my >> absurdity to the list. I've been an off and on luker here since the mid >> to >> late 90's. I've only posted a few times. I didn't catch the sarcasm. > > I tend to have passive aggression but I didn’t intend any sarcasm > here. The intended audience is people being inflicted covertly with > mental and physical maladies. > >> >> Sent from Proton Mail mobile >> > > On 10/19/22, HisName <hisname(a)protonmail.com> wrote: >> Wow, I haven't opened Cypher Punk lists for awhile. This is astounding. >> To >> me, this is quite the coding challenge. You wrote all that? > > I wrote only my kluge for uploading to arweave. It is a coding > challenge only if coding is hard in general i.e. I don’t see coding > challenges in my world anymore ever really, occasionally big libraries > that look rushed to relesse. Might be something I’m missing. > >> -------- Original Message -------- >> On Oct 19, 2022, 1:55 AM, Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & >> Survivor >> of Many wrote: > > The name is a little misleading, although it is because of this that > lifelogging is valuable for me. I’m thinking I was targeted by a > political cult a decade ago. I understand this is common for > cypherpunks to some degree. > > I was heavily jnfluenced not to reveal I was being mistreated, so it > helped me push myself around — i.e. manipulate my own triggers — to > change my name, and now I’m kind of confused around it. Part of the > confusion is likely that I’d prefer to use an anonymous identity, as > is appropriate for this list and public things in general. > >> >>> First of all, be aware there are communities of lifeloggers who love to >>> log their biosignals. I’m not up to speed on that. There are also groups >>> you can join where they collect medical data from you for the public >>> good. >>> I’m also not up to speed on that either. Second of all: I am still >>> _practicing_ this. I haven’t verified that anything is actually working, >>> so it should be assumed that it doesn’t yet. The current biggest hiccup >>> for this email is that I don’t have a public entrypoint to find my data. >>> With some digging, a lot can likely be found. Karl’s current EEG >>> situation: I am using a Muse S with the Mind Monitor app to collect >>> occasional brainwaves. I practice doing this by wearing the headband >>> even >>> when the app is not running. Over time, it gets more comfortable until >>> it >>> is pleasant like other clothing. I have backup headbands for swapping >>> out, >>> and I get warrantees on them, because my experience is that with >>> extended >>> use their lifespan is reduced. The default setup with the Muse and Mind >>> Monitor yields a lot of data loss for me. I am always getting bluetooth >>> connection blips. Mind Monitor also has a bug where it squeezes dropped >>> packets in the data, resulting in timestamp corruption. Still, I have a >>> ton of data. I’ve spent a lot of casual daydreams thinking of ways to >>> repair the timestamps, I don’t think it would be hard. I have also used >>> OpenBCI equipment and recommend it mostly to support efforts that have >>> both community and mainstreamness. I believe it provides much more data >>> than the Muse; however I believe the Muse also makes accelerometer and >>> gyroscope recordings which are likely good for tagging physical events. >>> I >>> presently store my recordings zstd-compressed in a git-annex repository, >>> and from the git-annex repository I believe many of my braineave >>> recordings have reached the arweave blockchain using an arweave git >>> annex >>> remote I kluged together. I would like to upgrade to an open hashing >>> system more streamlined for this than git-annex and my kluge. git-annex: >>> It’s cumbersome to use git-annex for this, although it does work, one >>> can >>> run into space exhaustion problems and file count problems that are >>> easier >>> to stimulate than recover from. Nowadays git-annex does support an adb >>> remote that can pull directly from android phones; I haven’t tried it >>> yet, >>> but it would ease use. If git-annex seems appealing, I recommend >>> learning >>> datalad rather than git-annex first, as datalad has more provisions for >>> handling things like large filecounts or deterministic transforms such >>> as >>> zstd compression. Voice Recording: I have both a voice recorder and a >>> mobile recording app, that I use to take voice recordings. Since I >>> haven’t >>> streamlined storage yet, I usually don’t run these 24/7 but rather turn >>> something on when I am engaging a situation that can be confusing for >>> me, >>> or saying something I value. Sometimes I’ll run more than one at once as >>> a >>> backup, since I can easily run into unexpected issues. I manually copy >>> the >>> recordings into a git-annex repository. This would be streamlined by >>> setting up my devices as a git-annex remote or such in some way, which I >>> haven’t done yet. It can take a long time to copy them. They then >>> eventually can end up on arweave etc. I’m excited when both voice and >>> EEG >>> are running at the same time, as this means the conditions and workings >>> of >>> my mind can be profiled and checked more accurately via the second >>> channel. Additionally, having more than one audio channel recording at >>> once provides data to triangulate where things are physically located >>> and >>> moving in increased detail. Keystrokes: I am also recording all my >>> terminal sessions using asciinema with its —stdin flag. Asciinema >>> includes >>> millisecond timestamps, so this records the timing of my keypresses. >>> These >>> are also added to a git-annex repository where they end up on arweave. >>> Since keypresses are made by my muscles and mind, they can also be used >>> to >>> profile my mental state as it changes from day to day or event to event, >>> especially given the potential accuracy of asciinema’s timestamps. There >>> is a more normative terminal recording program than asciinema, but I’ve >>> lost track of what it is. Video: I occasionally record both desktop >>> video >>> and self-surveillance. Some of this may have also reached the arweave >>> blockchain. This takes much more resources than the other things due to >>> the data size, although it is possible to configure qualities low enough >>> that things become more reasonable. On linux, there is a video recording >>> device that treats X sessions as a video input. I would really like to >>> get >>> video going better, as most of my weirdness has been gross human >>> behaviors >>> I engage in, such as hiding objects from myself. Video also provides the >>> peace of mind of physical security. I let doctors know I suspect I might >>> have occasional seizures and want investigation of this, and from doing >>> this I hope to have medical video and eeg at some point. I’m thinking it >>> could give me a leg up on videorecording to try to mimic the setup a >>> doctor provides, letting my issues more easily remember it is medically >>> important. >

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[ot] What I am doing for Biosignals Logging atm
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 19 Oct '22

19 Oct '22

First of all, be aware there are communities of lifeloggers who love to log their biosignals. I’m not up to speed on that. There are also groups you can join where they collect medical data from you for the public good. I’m also not up to speed on that either. Second of all: I am still _practicing_ this. I haven’t verified that anything is actually working, so it should be assumed that it doesn’t yet. The current biggest hiccup for this email is that I don’t have a public entrypoint to find my data. With some digging, a lot can likely be found. Karl’s current EEG situation: I am using a Muse S with the Mind Monitor app to collect occasional brainwaves. I practice doing this by wearing the headband even when the app is not running. Over time, it gets more comfortable until it is pleasant like other clothing. I have backup headbands for swapping out, and I get warrantees on them, because my experience is that with extended use their lifespan is reduced. The default setup with the Muse and Mind Monitor yields a lot of data loss for me. I am always getting bluetooth connection blips. Mind Monitor also has a bug where it squeezes dropped packets in the data, resulting in timestamp corruption. Still, I have a ton of data. I’ve spent a lot of casual daydreams thinking of ways to repair the timestamps, I don’t think it would be hard. I have also used OpenBCI equipment and recommend it mostly to support efforts that have both community and mainstreamness. I believe it provides much more data than the Muse; however I believe the Muse also makes accelerometer and gyroscope recordings which are likely good for tagging physical events. I presently store my recordings zstd-compressed in a git-annex repository, and from the git-annex repository I believe many of my braineave recordings have reached the arweave blockchain using an arweave git annex remote I kluged together. I would like to upgrade to an open hashing system more streamlined for this than git-annex and my kluge. git-annex: It’s cumbersome to use git-annex for this, although it does work, one can run into space exhaustion problems and file count problems that are easier to stimulate than recover from. Nowadays git-annex does support an adb remote that can pull directly from android phones; I haven’t tried it yet, but it would ease use. If git-annex seems appealing, I recommend learning datalad rather than git-annex first, as datalad has more provisions for handling things like large filecounts or deterministic transforms such as zstd compression. Voice Recording: I have both a voice recorder and a mobile recording app, that I use to take voice recordings. Since I haven’t streamlined storage yet, I usually don’t run these 24/7 but rather turn something on when I am engaging a situation that can be confusing for me, or saying something I value. Sometimes I’ll run more than one at once as a backup, since I can easily run into unexpected issues. I manually copy the recordings into a git-annex repository. This would be streamlined by setting up my devices as a git-annex remote or such in some way, which I haven’t done yet. It can take a long time to copy them. They then eventually can end up on arweave etc. I’m excited when both voice and EEG are running at the same time, as this means the conditions and workings of my mind can be profiled and checked more accurately via the second channel. Additionally, having more than one audio channel recording at once provides data to triangulate where things are physically located and moving in increased detail. Keystrokes: I am also recording all my terminal sessions using asciinema with its —stdin flag. Asciinema includes millisecond timestamps, so this records the timing of my keypresses. These are also added to a git-annex repository where they end up on arweave. Since keypresses are made by my muscles and mind, they can also be used to profile my mental state as it changes from day to day or event to event, especially given the potential accuracy of asciinema’s timestamps. There is a more normative terminal recording program than asciinema, but I’ve lost track of what it is. Video: I occasionally record both desktop video and self-surveillance. Some of this may have also reached the arweave blockchain. This takes much more resources than the other things due to the data size, although it is possible to configure qualities low enough that things become more reasonable. On linux, there is a video recording device that treats X sessions as a video input. I would really like to get video going better, as most of my weirdness has been gross human behaviors I engage in, such as hiding objects from myself. Video also provides the peace of mind of physical security. I let doctors know I suspect I might have occasional seizures and want investigation of this, and from doing this I hope to have medical video and eeg at some point. I’m thinking it could give me a leg up on videorecording to try to mimic the setup a doctor provides, letting my issues more easily remember it is medically important.

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chattinging with rooty was: greetings to workout facility
by Undescribed Horrific Abuse, One Victim & Survivor of Many 19 Oct '22

19 Oct '22

[small discussion on arpspoofing] > > I don’t write code Karl. I just borrow from others (no need to re invent the > wheel). I am working on “hello world” and should be finished with that today > - :D that's about where I am, practicing hello world. some might say that just speaking a little indirectly could be considered the beginnings of writing code. any thoughts on this?

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Framing in criminal investigation: How police officers (re)construct a crime
by Gunnar Larson 19 Oct '22

19 Oct '22

Really found this essay on framing, deframing and reframing to be refreshing. Sometimes, when innovation happens it takes time for important parties to frame the internet and decifer if any potential criminality is cause for concern. Deframing and reframing are natural products of evolution. Innovation happens with reframing... like it or not. Check out 39 highlights on the subject here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1iDHmDQuaN3JDcaTDnDhkdVyacYXiONDz/view?usp=…

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The Role Of Law Enforcement In Detecting, Investigating, And Prosecuting Criminal Activity Related To Digital Assets
by Gunnar Larson 19 Oct '22

19 Oct '22

Brody Larson collates 70 highlights to The Role Of Law Enforcement In Detecting, Investigating, And Prosecuting Criminal Activity Related To Digital Assets: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1KjCDedZ9ah8E7kyD2Dj_TET-jpH8orpO/view?usp=… "Financial regulations also play a key role in protecting national security, including through the designation of certain individuals and entities for sanctions based on a determination that they pose a threat to the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the United States."

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Donald Trump seems pretty unhappy about the newly approved wind project off Martha’s Vineyard
by Gunnar Larson 19 Oct '22

19 Oct '22

https://bdc2020.o0bc.com/news/politics/2021/05/12/donald-trump-vineyard-win…

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Trump adviser involved in Vineyard Wind opposition - E&E News
by Gunnar Larson 19 Oct '22

19 Oct '22

"Trump adviser involved in Vineyard Wind opposition" https://www.eenews.net/articles/trump-adviser-involved-in-vineyard-wind-opp… David Stevenson, policy director at the Caesar Rodney Institute, participates in a press conference yesterday in Boston announcing a lawsuit that aims to block construction of Vineyard Wind, the first major offshore wind facility approved in the United States. AP Photo/Philip Marcelo The two Nantucket women said they were suing the federal government because they wanted to save the North Atlantic right whale from offshore wind. Then a former member of President Trump’s EPA transition team stepped to the microphone to commend them for their bravery. “They did it voluntarily,” David Stevenson, the former Trump adviser, said of the women. “They’re not getting anything out of this other than trying to save the whales, save Nantucket.” So went a press conference outside the Massachusetts State House yesterday, where offshore wind critics announced a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s approval of Vineyard Wind, the first major offshore wind project in America to be issued an environmental permit. Advertisement The lawsuit marks a new chapter in a decadeslong push to build offshore wind farms in America. Cape Wind, the first offshore wind project proposed in the U.S. waters, was sunk by nearly two decades of legal battles. Now, the question is whether they will sink a second generation of projects. Vineyard Wind, a 62-turbine project 12 miles south of Martha’s Vineyard, is the first to run the legal gauntlet. The $2.8 billion project is the only utility-scale offshore wind project to receive a final permit from the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. Other projects could soon follow. BOEM, as the bureau is known, has committed to reviewing 16 others along the Eastern Seaboard by the end of President Biden’s first term. The lawsuit <https://subscriber.politicopro.com/f/eenews/?id=0000017b-7fbb-d1d1-a57f-ffb…> filed by Nantucket Residents Against Turbines in the U.S. District Court District of Massachusetts argues that the bureau failed to consider the impact of Vineyard Wind on right whales. It seeks to vacate the permit. It’s not the first time opponents have challenged BOEM’s review of Vineyard Wind. That distinction belongs to a small-scale solar developer who owns a vacation house on Martha’s Vineyard (*Climatewire <https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2021/07/20/solar-executiv…>*, July 20). But the Nantucket suit illustrates how critics of offshore wind are starting to organize in opposition to projects along the East Coast. Nantucket Residents Against Turbines is a part of the American Coalition for Ocean Protection, a network of community groups that are fighting offshore wind developments, Stevenson said. The Caesar Rodney Institute, a libertarian think tank where Stevenson serves as director of the Center for Energy and the Environment <https://www.caesarrodney.org/CRI-staff/David-T-Stevenson.htm>, is spearheading a legal defense fund to fight offshore wind up and down the Eastern Seaboard. “We communicate with each other, help each other out with resources and ideas,” he said. “You’ve got the emotional power of the beach community, that comes without a lot of background in how to get things done, with these state policy groups.” Community groups like Nantucket Residents Against Turbines played a key role in defeating Cape Wind. At the time, the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound unleashed a storm of legal action against Cape Wind with funding from conservative industrialists like William Koch. Stevenson said donations to the American Coalition for Ocean Protection have come from individual property owners along the coast, though he declined to identify any. “So far there is no Koch money, not that we wouldn’t take it,” he said. The Caesar Rodney Institute recently helped establish a legal defense fund to finance lawsuits against offshore wind projects. It has raised $75,000 to date with the goal of raising $500,000, Stevenson said. He said the money would be directed to plaintiffs with standing and a strong legal case. None has yet gone to Nantucket Residents Against Turbines. But the lawsuit sets an important precedent, Stevenson said. “The approval of the Vineyard Wind is kind of a hinge point,” he said. “If it gets approved and it stands with the shoddy job they did on the EIS [environmental impact statement], they’ll approve the rest of them. The coalition partners agree we need to stop the Vineyard Wind project.” Whale extinction ‘inevitable’ Vallorie Oliver, the founder of Nantucket Residents Against Turbines, is listed as the sole plaintiff in the case. BOEM had failed to provide scientific justification for giving Vineyard Wind an incidental take permit for right whales, Oliver told reporters at the press conference. The permit enables the developer to drive monopoles into the seabed in the vicinity of up to 20 whales. Noise from pile driving is considered harassment. A biological assessment <https://subscriber.politicopro.com/f/eenews/?id=0000017b-7fbc-d290-a57b-fff…> conducted by NOAA Fisheries as part of BOEM’s analysis found pile driving activity could temporarily force right whales to go elsewhere, but was unlikely to injure or kill them. “Once these installations are erected and the damage is done, that is not the time for regret, especially for the North Atlantic right whale, whose extinction will then most surely be inevitable,” Oliver said. Right whales and offshore wind projects have the potential to come into conflict. A recent study <https://www.int-res.com/articles/esr2021/45/n045p251.pdf> by the New England Aquarium found the whales’ presence appears to be increasing in the waters off southern New England, where seven wind developments have been proposed. Whale sightings were common between 2011 and 2015 just north of the area where Vineyard Wind and six other developments have been proposed, the study found. They moved into the eastern area of the wind development area in the winters of 2017 to 2019. The whales were even more prevalent during the spring months. “Implementing mitigation procedures in coordination with these findings will be crucial in lessening the potential impacts on right whales from construction noise, increased vessel traffic, and habitat disruption in this region,” the aquarium researchers wrote. Funding for the aquarium study was provided by BOEM and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center, a state entity that supports the build-out of renewable energy in the Bay State. BOEM and Vineyard Wind declined comment on the lawsuit. ‘No … serious injury of any kind’ The developer, a joint venture of Avangrid Inc. and Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, has made efforts to limit its impact on whales. In 2019, Vineyard Wind agreed to a series of voluntary mitigation measures as part of a deal <https://www.vineyardwind.com/protecting-environment> with the Natural Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation and Conservation Law Foundation. The deal calls for no pile driving between Jan. 1 and April 30 and requires the developer to halt pile driving if whales are sighted near the area at other times of the year. Those conditions were incorporated into BOEM’s permit. The biological assessment issued by NOAA Fisheries found that pile-driving events would last up to three hours, but would be unlikely to harm the animal if whales went undetected. “No non-auditory injury, serious injury of any kind, or mortality is anticipated,” the opinion stated. Fishing gear, which can entangle whales and kill them, and vessel strikes are the primary cause for the dangerous drop in the right whale population over the last decade, the New England Aquarium found. It estimated the whale’s total population is 356. NOAA, which regulates commercial fisheries, is reportedly weighing more stringent regulations on fishing gear in an attempt to stop the decline of right whales. While offshore wind critics said they were concerned about Vineyard Wind’s impact on right whales, they said they were not following the NOAA proposal and could not offer an opinion on what it would mean for the animal. “The fishermen say they are already obeying all the restrictions,” Stevenson said. ‘I am not a denier’ Stevenson made a name for himself in conservative circles for fighting proposed climate policies. He has opposed Pennsylvania’s decision to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a cap and trade program for power plants, and is on the board of policy advisers <https://www.heartland.org/about-us/who-we-are/david-t-stevenson> at the Heritage Institute, a conservative think tank that has questioned the science of climate change (*Energywire* <https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2020/02/18/pas-future-in-…>, Feb. 18, 2020). At EPA, Stevenson was a part of a transition team that sought agency records on controversies like “Climate Gate,” the 2009 hacking of the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit that some conservatives argued showed climate change was a conspiracy cooked up by scientists (*Greenwire <https://subscriber.politicopro.com/article/eenews/2017/09/25/trump-transiti…>*, Sept. 25, 2017). In one instance, Stevenson specifically requested agency communications regarding EPA’s crafting of a 2013 social cost of carbon calculation. Stevenson said his opposition to offshore wind was borne from a belief that it would damage the environment and economy, causing electricity bills to rise. “I am not a denier of climate change. I am not against solar,” Stevenson said, noting he has built a net-zero house in Delaware and was involved in solar research when employed by DuPont, a chemical company. Massachusetts and other Northeastern states involved in offshore wind should consider solar and natural gas as alternatives, he said. Members of Nantucket Residents Against Turbines said they were grateful for the support. Raising concern about Vineyard Wind’s impact on Nantucket has often been a lonely task, said Mary Chalke, a member of the group who joined Stevenson and Oliver at yesterday’s press conference. Many people on Nantucket were unaware of the project and often confused it for Cape Wind. She described Nantucket Residents Against Turbines as “pure grassroots” and said environmental impacts like the plight of the right whale are its primary concern. “Politics or other special interests don’t weigh into that as far as I am concerned,” she said. To the contrary, support from other communities along the East Coast and groups like the American Ocean Protection Coalition was welcome. “We’re not alone anymore,” Chalke said.

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Bernhardt: Trump tried to boost offshore wind, not kill it - E&E News
by Gunnar Larson 19 Oct '22

19 Oct '22

https://www.eenews.net/articles/bernhardt-trump-tried-to-boost-offshore-win… Where is Elizabeth Warren on the United States' largest wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts? JPMorgan is clearly subject to the Endangered Species Act yet Mr. Trump's role in Vineyard Wind seems being ignored. Bernhardt: Trump tried to boost offshore wind, not kill it By *Benjamin Storrow* | 07/21/2021 06:46 AM EDT [image: David Bernhardt and Donald Trump.] Then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt spoke last year as President Trump looked on. Bernhardt yesterday defended his role in delaying a major offshore wind farm. Drew Angerer/Getty Images Former Interior Secretary David Bernhardt defended the Trump administration’s lengthy review of America’s first offshore wind farm in an interview yesterday, saying the additional environmental analysis he ordered was intended to strengthen the project against legal challenges rather than kill it. The Trump administration had initially planned to complete a review of Vineyard Wind in the summer of 2019. But Bernhardt surprised the project’s developers, who proposed a $2.8 billion wind farm near Martha’s Vineyard, Mass., by expanding a government study of the project to consider other wind farms proposed along the East Coast. The announcement cast a pall over the wind industry. It slowed planning work on other projects and raised questions about the viability of offshore wind in the United States. Many industry supporters suspected the move was a reflection of former President Trump’s disdain for wind power, which he regularly lambasted as an eyesore and a danger to birds. Trump erroneously claimed wind turbines could cause cancer. But in a phone interview yesterday while vacationing at a North Carolina beach, Bernhardt said it was “fundamentally false” that the administration was playing politics with Vineyard Wind. Instead, he said his call for more analysis was driven by the growing number of wind projects proposed along the East Coast and by divisions among federal agencies over Vineyard Wind’s potential impact on commercial fishing and marine navigation. “You can’t proceed with federal agencies warring with each other,” he said. “I was like, ‘Look, we don’t have our ducks in a row.’” He added, “The last thing we wanted to do is put out a finalized program that wasn’t legally sustainable.” Bernhardt’s comments came hours after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management released more than 500 pages of documents in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by E&E News. The documents were related to the permitting process of Vineyard Wind. They show that BOEM officials were nearing completion of the project’s environmental impact statement in the summer of 2019. It was the final step before approval. Then Bernhardt got involved. “BOEM briefed the DOI Executive review team on the Vineyard Wind Final EIS on Friday, June 28th (this briefing is required prior to publication of a Final EIS for all DOI agencies),” Brian Krevor, an environmental protection specialist at BOEM, wrote to other federal officials involved in the permit review on July 1, 2019. “The Secretary of the Interior is now personally reviewing the Final EIS and associated materials,” he added. “As a result, the Final EIS was not filed with the EPA on the 28th and will not be published on July 5th. I currently do not have a date for when the document will be published.” Bernhardt said he had promised Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker, a Republican who has championed offshore wind, that he would personally read Vineyard Wind’s EIS. He said he was “extremely troubled” by what he read. A growing number of states along the East Coast had signed contracts to buy electricity from offshore wind projects by the time Interior officials were finalizing the Vineyard Wind study. But the cumulative impact of those projects on other ocean users like the fishing industry was not considered in the study, Bernhardt said yesterday. He was also concerned about issues raised by other agencies. NOAA Fisheries, a division of the Commerce Department that oversees federal fisheries, had informed BOEM it did not agree with the bureau’s impact analysis of Vineyard Wind. The U.S. Coast Guard had raised separate issues about the safety of marine vessels transiting the project’s towers. “It was very important to me that we not have conflict between the agencies when you go out for the first project,” Bernhardt said. “People have to have faith the government is doing the job it is required to do and managing the varying interests we had. We couldn’t be shooting at each other.” Trump critics saw the delay as an attempt to kill the project, but Bernhardt said he has a long-standing interest in offshore wind. In 2005, he helped draft the Energy Policy Act as Interior’s congressional liaison. The law gave Interior oversight of offshore wind permitting. “I think where I depart from perhaps some is that because I was actually involved in the development of the legislation, it is my view that a high bar was set in the standards that the secretary must meet to move forward both in preventing waste but also in protecting other uses,” Bernhardt said. “I think the legislation that was created was intended to be cautionary. It is important to make these projects work in areas and places where they don’t do harm to others,” he said. “That was what Congress was trying to do, because it was developed in context of the Cape Wind situation.” Cape Wind was a 130-turbine project proposed in Nantucket Sound. The federal government lacked regulations for permitting offshore wind projects when it was initially proposed. It was ultimately abandoned in 2017 after years of lawsuits from residents who worried about the sight of turbines and their impact on environmental and cultural resources. Fearing a similar outcome, Vineyard Wind went back to the drawing board after Bernhardt’s unexpected announcement in 2019. It revamped the layout of its project, agreeing to space its turbines 1 nautical mile apart in a grid. The move was intended to address concerns from fishermen and the Coast Guard about transiting between the turbines. Other offshore wind developers said they would follow the same pattern. Vineyard Wind also increased the size of its turbines, from 9.5 megawatts to 12 megawatts, enabling it to reduce the number of towers from 84 to 62. The company’s initial plan called for 104 turbines. The project has a capacity of 800 MW, enough to power 400,000 homes. When BOEM released a draft review of the cumulative impact of all proposed offshore wind projects in the summer of 2020, it found the industry would have an adverse effect on fishermen. But it also concluded that fishermen would be affected by climate change and that the burden of the turbine would be concentrated on different parts of the fishing fleet. Squid boats, it found, would be most impacted by Vineyard Wind. It also determined that the wind industry stood to create thousands of jobs. BOEM subsequently missed a November deadline to finish its review. Instead, it would announce its final decision on Jan. 15, five days before Trump was scheduled to leave office. In response, Vineyard Wind announced in December that it was withdrawing its permit application, saying it needed to consider the impact of using larger turbines as part of the project. It quickly refiled its application after Biden took office, concluding the larger turbines did not alter the project’s impact. BOEM approved a final EIS in March and stamped Vineyard Wind’s permit in May. The final decision said it expected the project would have a negligible to moderate impact on fishermen but that the impact could become major as a result of future offshore projects. A 2020 study by the Coast Guard concluded that the updated grid layout addressed many of the navigation concerns. But the permitting snafu may yet plague the project. A lawsuit filed this week challenging the project’s permit said BOEM erred when it decided to re-accept the application without considering the impact of the larger turbines. Bernhardt, for his part, said Interior was committed to finishing its review under his watch, saying a tremendous amount of work was done to “ensure that when this program went forward it would be defensible and stand the test of time.” “A tremendous amount of work on this project was happening up to the moment they chose to terminate,” he added. Asked if the final EIS released by the Biden administration differed from the one being prepared by the Trump administration, Bernhardt said it was difficult to evaluate because his team never finished its review. But, he added, “I would be very skeptical that it looks dramatically different.”

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Jennifer Robinson is to Journalist Julian Assmange what Clavin Ayre is to Pastor Craig Wright.
by professor rat 19 Oct '22

19 Oct '22

See, Austria got all the criminals - Amerikkka got all the Gilead Puritans. Here endeth the History lesson.

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