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‘TD crew’ got heads up Canada would obscure involvement in Trans Mountain pipeline bailout

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Wednesday, May 24, 2023

By Carl Meyer An executive at the federally owned Trans Mountain corporation gave TD Bank a heads up that the government would obscure the financial institution’s involvement in a multibillion dollar bailout for the struggling oil pipeline, according to an email obtained by The Narwhal. Trans Mountain chief financial officer Mark Maki gave the assurance to six people working for Toronto-Dominion Bank’s investment banking arm, TD Securities, in the May 2022 email obtained under access to information law. Maki opened his message to the six bankers by amicably greeting them as the “TD crew.” He also sent them an advance copy of Finance Canada’s news release about the government’s latest effort to support the construction of the pipeline’s expansion project. The email provides a glimpse at private conversations between the federal government and Canada’s big banks in the lead-up to Ottawa’s decision to support a $10 billion loan to Trans Mountain from a financial syndicate. The federal government’s support came in the form of a loan guarantee — meaning the public would assume the loan’s financial risk. It also provides a stark example of how the government offered to protect bankers from criticism about their involvement in the controversial pipeline expansion. “TD crew, the Government of Canada will be issuing a news release shortly to deal with inbound requests with respect to the status of [Trans Mountain corporation] financing,” Maki, who spent three decades at rival pipeline company Enbridge, told the bankers. “Please note no specific callout of the syndicate members.” Trans Mountain and Finance Canada say information about the banks’ involvement was public to anyone with a subscription to financial data services — which can cost upwards of US$20,000. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal Government defends decision to obscure banks behind Trans Mountain loan The government decided to offer the loan guarantee in the wake of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland ruling out any further direct public funding for the pipeline’s expansion, leaving private lending as the main alternative. Canada Development Investment Corporation, the Crown corporation that owns the pipeline and reports to Parliament through Freeland, said in its 2021 annual report that the pipeline would require “necessary external financing” or else it couldn’t complete the construction project. But the loan guarantee was put in place despite the fact that the cost of completing the pipeline’s expansion had swelled to $21 billion from an initial cost estimate of $7.4 billion. (The cost has since grown further to more than $30 billion as of March 2023.) In backing the loan, the government also put taxpayers on the hook in the event the expansion project is cancelled, according to a financial report from the Crown corporation. Investigating problems. Exploring solutions The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for a weekly dose of independent journalism. Investigating problems. Exploring solutions The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for a weekly dose of independent journalism. Despite the uncertainty involved in placing the risks of a $10 billion financing deal for a project plagued with cost overruns into the public’s hands, Ottawa’s conversations with the banks were carried out behind closed doors. Even after Finance Canada revealed details of the loan in a public announcement, the department left out TD’s name, and the names of the syndicate’s other members. A CBC News report from the time, for example, noted “the statement didn’t say which institutions are funding the pipeline’s completion.” Trans Mountain and Finance Canada have defended their decision not to be proactive about telling Canadians how the banks were involved in the $10 billion deal. The pipeline company and federal department argue the information was already available for people with a subscription to financial data services. “When this news release was issued, information about the lenders was already public,” a spokesperson for Finance Canada said. “The transaction was disclosed through data services like Bloomberg and Refinitiv.” The Bloomberg Terminal is a popular financial data service, costing around US$24,000 per year to access. Refinitiv Eikon is a competitor, and costs around US$22,000. Other data services can come cheaper, but most require paid subscriptions of some sort to access, although they may have free trials. Asked why TD was given a heads up about not being named in the government’s announcement, a spokesperson for Trans Mountain called it a “courtesy.” The email from Maki and a copy of Finance Canada’s announcement were the only documents released to The Narwhal after requesting all correspondence between Trans Mountain and the department, concerning the loan guarantee. The Narwhal could not confirm whether other banks were notified prior to the news release being published. The Trans Mountain pipeline runs from the Edmonton area to B.C.’s Burnaby Terminal, seen here. Because the government owns the pipeline, critics say conversations about securing its private financing should have been in the public sphere. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal ‘Finance Canada is lying,’ says Stand.earth’s climate finance director Environmental advocacy group Stand.earth accessed the financial data from the Bloomberg Terminal in May 2022. They discovered that the syndicate backing the pipeline was comprised of TD, along with all of Canada’s other “big five” banks — Bank of Montreal (BMO), Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) — as well as National Bank of Canada. Due to the significant price tag for access, the data the group obtained should not be understood to have been publicly available, the group’s climate finance director Richard Brooks said in an interview. “Finance Canada is lying, you can quote me on that. They’re lying, it wasn’t public,” he said. Because the government owns the pipeline, conversations and negotiations about securing private financing “should have been in the public sphere and not behind closed doors,” Brooks argued. The fact that TD Bank was offered an advance copy of the news release from Finance Canada, he added, also raises questions about government accountability. “Our government should be accountable to us Canadians, not to the bank,” Brooks said. “This is part of the reason why we can’t leave it to our Canadian banks to [scale back] their activities when it comes to fossil fuel financing.” The Canadian Bankers Association, an industry group that represents TD Bank and Canada’s other big banks, said it would decline to comment on Maki’s email. Four spokespeople for TD Bank did not return requests for comment from The Narwhal. Economist Robyn Allan said TD Bank’s dual role as financial advisor for, and lender to, the Trans Mountain pipeline is an “obvious contradiction” that the secrecy surrounding the loan has highlighted. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal Secrecy surrounding TD highlights ‘obvious contradiction’ for big bank: expert There is an “obvious contradiction” in the role that TD Bank has played when it comes to Trans Mountain, argued independent economist Robyn Allan, a former president of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia and a prominent critic of the pipeline expansion project. Trans Mountain’s expansion will nearly triple the pipeline’s capacity to 890,000 barrels per day of crude oil and other petroleum products flowing from near Edmonton to a Vancouver-area marine terminal. In 2015, Allan withdrew her status as an intervenor in the federal energy regulator’s review of the expansion project, accusing the regulator of ignoring issues like the impact of increased carbon pollution from the oilpatch that the pipeline would facilitate. The contradiction with TD comes from its dual role as financial advisor and lender, Allan said. As a financial advisor, TD Securities, along with BMO Capital Markets, found in early 2022 the project was still “commercially viable” despite cost estimates that were already elevated at the time, according to a Finance Canada statement issued three months before Maki’s email. Yet as a lender, the bank’s participation in the syndicated loan to Trans Mountain came with a government guarantee, “as if the project is too risky — as if it is not commercially viable,” Allan said. “None of the information regarding TD’s financial viability analysis has been made public, so it is not possible to check the veracity of TD’s financial viability claim,” she said. Adding to this contradiction is the fact the government felt the need to hide TD’s involvement in the syndicated loan, Allan said. “This behaviour raises red flags as to what [else] TD and the Government of Canada are trying to hide,” she said. TD’s public connection with Trans Mountain dates back to before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government bought the pipeline and its expansion project from Texas energy company Kinder Morgan in 2018. In 2017, the bank acted as a lead underwriter for a $1.7 billion initial public offering for Kinder Morgan Canada Limited, and in 2018 it helped finance Canada’s $4.7 billion purchase of the pipeline. That same year, TD Securities also wrote the opinion that the government’s offer at the time was fair. Now, with costs continuing to rise, other financial analyses, such as that from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, have questioned the ability of Trans Mountain to cover its debts. Allan herself concluded in an October 2022 report for West Coast Environmental Law that the tolls shippers on the pipeline will pay once the expansion project is operational, have not kept pace with the construction costs. Meanwhile, the project continues to face “numerous technically challenging construction activities,” like groundwater leaching into mountain drilling areas and problems sourcing specialty cement for a tunnel, according to the Crown corporation. This “adds uncertainty in costs and schedule” to the predicted timeline of completion by 2023, it said. The pipeline has also faced controversy over inadequate consultations with Indigenous communities, including a Federal Court of Appeal decision in 2018 that said Canada failed to meaningfully consult with Indigenous Peoples about the expansion project, quashing Trudeau’s original approval of it. The Tsleil-Waututh Nation, which argued in that case that Canada failed in its duty to consult, wrote a letter to TD Bank’s CEO Bharat Masrani in March 2022, warning the bank against considering any financing for Trans Mountain’s expansion plans, in light of the risks from climate change and infringing human rights. As of December 2022, Trans Mountain corporation was $23.3 billion in debt, and it still needs an additional $3 to $5 billion of funding. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal New $13 billion Trans Mountain loan still may not be enough, Crown corporation says Cabinet approved the $10 billion loan guarantee on April 29, 2022. Maki sent his message a couple weeks later to four people in the Calgary office of TD Securities who work in global energy, loan syndications and corporate credit, according to their LinkedIn profiles, and two more at the bank’s Toronto office. He copied a lawyer and a vice-president for Trans Mountain, an executive at the Crown corporation and two officials at Finance Canada — a director of corporate finance and a senior advisor to the deputy minister. The $10 billion in financing was structured as a revolving credit facility, which is sort of like a credit card, where the borrower can make withdrawals, repay and then make further withdrawals. By the end of 2022, the pipeline company had withdrawn $7.2 billion from it, according to Canada Development Investment Corporation’s 2023 to 2027 corporate plan summary. In exchange for the federal government’s guarantee of the loan, the company paid a fee. At the end of 2022 it had racked up $36.8 million in guarantee fees, according to the corporate plan. The $10 billion deal had a one-year term. In May 2023, Trans Mountain secured a new financing deal, one with a two-year term and a higher borrowing limit of $13 billion, the corporate plan shows. Stand.earth, the environmental advocacy group, obtained financial data in May that confirmed this new arrangement. The data shows all of Canada’s “big five” banks are again involved, as well as National Bank. As of December 2022, Trans Mountain corporation was $23.3 billion in debt. In the four and a half years between the time the pipeline was bought by the government and the end of 2022, the pipeline company has sunk “over $18 billion” into the expansion project, the corporate plan confirmed. Even so, Trans Mountain says it still needs more money. The Crown corporation’s plan says an additional $3 to $5 billion of funding “will be required and has not been fully identified.” In the event that it can’t secure this funding, the Crown corporation said construction of the pipeline expansion would need to be halted, and workers laid off. If the expansion project was cancelled, it said, “borrowings outstanding under the [loan] would have the government guarantee triggered.”

By Carl Meyer Finance Canada disputes critics who say government is hiding something

Suburban neighbourhood with construction project through the middle showing pipeline segments.

An executive at the federally owned Trans Mountain corporation gave TD Bank a heads up that the government would obscure the financial institution’s involvement in a multibillion dollar bailout for the struggling oil pipeline, according to an email obtained by The Narwhal.

Trans Mountain chief financial officer Mark Maki gave the assurance to six people working for Toronto-Dominion Bank’s investment banking arm, TD Securities, in the May 2022 email obtained under access to information law.

Maki opened his message to the six bankers by amicably greeting them as the “TD crew.” He also sent them an advance copy of Finance Canada’s news release about the government’s latest effort to support the construction of the pipeline’s expansion project.

The email provides a glimpse at private conversations between the federal government and Canada’s big banks in the lead-up to Ottawa’s decision to support a $10 billion loan to Trans Mountain from a financial syndicate. The federal government’s support came in the form of a loan guarantee — meaning the public would assume the loan’s financial risk. It also provides a stark example of how the government offered to protect bankers from criticism about their involvement in the controversial pipeline expansion.

“TD crew, the Government of Canada will be issuing a news release shortly to deal with inbound requests with respect to the status of [Trans Mountain corporation] financing,” Maki, who spent three decades at rival pipeline company Enbridge, told the bankers.

“Please note no specific callout of the syndicate members.”

A construction site with many green pipeline segments in the foreground.
Trans Mountain and Finance Canada say information about the banks’ involvement was public to anyone with a subscription to financial data services — which can cost upwards of US$20,000. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Government defends decision to obscure banks behind Trans Mountain loan

The government decided to offer the loan guarantee in the wake of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland ruling out any further direct public funding for the pipeline’s expansion, leaving private lending as the main alternative.

Canada Development Investment Corporation, the Crown corporation that owns the pipeline and reports to Parliament through Freeland, said in its 2021 annual report that the pipeline would require “necessary external financing” or else it couldn’t complete the construction project.

But the loan guarantee was put in place despite the fact that the cost of completing the pipeline’s expansion had swelled to $21 billion from an initial cost estimate of $7.4 billion. (The cost has since grown further to more than $30 billion as of March 2023.)

In backing the loan, the government also put taxpayers on the hook in the event the expansion project is cancelled, according to a financial report from the Crown corporation.

Investigating problems. Exploring solutions
The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for a weekly dose of independent journalism.
Investigating problems. Exploring solutions
The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for a weekly dose of independent journalism.

Despite the uncertainty involved in placing the risks of a $10 billion financing deal for a project plagued with cost overruns into the public’s hands, Ottawa’s conversations with the banks were carried out behind closed doors.

Even after Finance Canada revealed details of the loan in a public announcement, the department left out TD’s name, and the names of the syndicate’s other members. A CBC News report from the time, for example, noted “the statement didn’t say which institutions are funding the pipeline’s completion.”

Trans Mountain and Finance Canada have defended their decision not to be proactive about telling Canadians how the banks were involved in the $10 billion deal. The pipeline company and federal department argue the information was already available for people with a subscription to financial data services.

“When this news release was issued, information about the lenders was already public,” a spokesperson for Finance Canada said. “The transaction was disclosed through data services like Bloomberg and Refinitiv.”

The Bloomberg Terminal is a popular financial data service, costing around US$24,000 per year to access. Refinitiv Eikon is a competitor, and costs around US$22,000. Other data services can come cheaper, but most require paid subscriptions of some sort to access, although they may have free trials.

Asked why TD was given a heads up about not being named in the government’s announcement, a spokesperson for Trans Mountain called it a “courtesy.”

The email from Maki and a copy of Finance Canada’s announcement were the only documents released to The Narwhal after requesting all correspondence between Trans Mountain and the department, concerning the loan guarantee. The Narwhal could not confirm whether other banks were notified prior to the news release being published.

Aerial view of an oil marine terminal set against a mountainous background.
The Trans Mountain pipeline runs from the Edmonton area to B.C.’s Burnaby Terminal, seen here. Because the government owns the pipeline, critics say conversations about securing its private financing should have been in the public sphere. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

‘Finance Canada is lying,’ says Stand.earth’s climate finance director

Environmental advocacy group Stand.earth accessed the financial data from the Bloomberg Terminal in May 2022.

They discovered that the syndicate backing the pipeline was comprised of TD, along with all of Canada’s other “big five” banks — Bank of Montreal (BMO), Bank of Nova Scotia (Scotiabank), Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) and Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) — as well as National Bank of Canada.

Due to the significant price tag for access, the data the group obtained should not be understood to have been publicly available, the group’s climate finance director Richard Brooks said in an interview.

“Finance Canada is lying, you can quote me on that. They’re lying, it wasn’t public,” he said.

Because the government owns the pipeline, conversations and negotiations about securing private financing “should have been in the public sphere and not behind closed doors,” Brooks argued.

The fact that TD Bank was offered an advance copy of the news release from Finance Canada, he added, also raises questions about government accountability.

“Our government should be accountable to us Canadians, not to the bank,” Brooks said. “This is part of the reason why we can’t leave it to our Canadian banks to [scale back] their activities when it comes to fossil fuel financing.”

The Canadian Bankers Association, an industry group that represents TD Bank and Canada’s other big banks, said it would decline to comment on Maki’s email.

Four spokespeople for TD Bank did not return requests for comment from The Narwhal.

Aerial view of a suburb and construction of a pipeline cutting through a neighbourhood with mountains in the background.
Economist Robyn Allan said TD Bank’s dual role as financial advisor for, and lender to, the Trans Mountain pipeline is an “obvious contradiction” that the secrecy surrounding the loan has highlighted. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

Secrecy surrounding TD highlights ‘obvious contradiction’ for big bank: expert

There is an “obvious contradiction” in the role that TD Bank has played when it comes to Trans Mountain, argued independent economist Robyn Allan, a former president of the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia and a prominent critic of the pipeline expansion project.

Trans Mountain’s expansion will nearly triple the pipeline’s capacity to 890,000 barrels per day of crude oil and other petroleum products flowing from near Edmonton to a Vancouver-area marine terminal. In 2015, Allan withdrew her status as an intervenor in the federal energy regulator’s review of the expansion project, accusing the regulator of ignoring issues like the impact of increased carbon pollution from the oilpatch that the pipeline would facilitate.

The contradiction with TD comes from its dual role as financial advisor and lender, Allan said.

As a financial advisor, TD Securities, along with BMO Capital Markets, found in early 2022 the project was still “commercially viable” despite cost estimates that were already elevated at the time, according to a Finance Canada statement issued three months before Maki’s email.

Yet as a lender, the bank’s participation in the syndicated loan to Trans Mountain came with a government guarantee, “as if the project is too risky — as if it is not commercially viable,” Allan said.

“None of the information regarding TD’s financial viability analysis has been made public, so it is not possible to check the veracity of TD’s financial viability claim,” she said.

Adding to this contradiction is the fact the government felt the need to hide TD’s involvement in the syndicated loan, Allan said. “This behaviour raises red flags as to what [else] TD and the Government of Canada are trying to hide,” she said.

TD’s public connection with Trans Mountain dates back to before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government bought the pipeline and its expansion project from Texas energy company Kinder Morgan in 2018.

In 2017, the bank acted as a lead underwriter for a $1.7 billion initial public offering for Kinder Morgan Canada Limited, and in 2018 it helped finance Canada’s $4.7 billion purchase of the pipeline. That same year, TD Securities also wrote the opinion that the government’s offer at the time was fair.

Now, with costs continuing to rise, other financial analyses, such as that from the Parliamentary Budget Officer, have questioned the ability of Trans Mountain to cover its debts. Allan herself concluded in an October 2022 report for West Coast Environmental Law that the tolls shippers on the pipeline will pay once the expansion project is operational, have not kept pace with the construction costs.

Meanwhile, the project continues to face “numerous technically challenging construction activities,” like groundwater leaching into mountain drilling areas and problems sourcing specialty cement for a tunnel, according to the Crown corporation. This “adds uncertainty in costs and schedule” to the predicted timeline of completion by 2023, it said.

The pipeline has also faced controversy over inadequate consultations with Indigenous communities, including a Federal Court of Appeal decision in 2018 that said Canada failed to meaningfully consult with Indigenous Peoples about the expansion project, quashing Trudeau’s original approval of it.

The Tsleil-Waututh Nation, which argued in that case that Canada failed in its duty to consult, wrote a letter to TD Bank’s CEO Bharat Masrani in March 2022, warning the bank against considering any financing for Trans Mountain’s expansion plans, in light of the risks from climate change and infringing human rights.

Pipeline segments through a path in the forest.
As of December 2022, Trans Mountain corporation was $23.3 billion in debt, and it still needs an additional $3 to $5 billion of funding. Photo: Jesse Winter / The Narwhal

New $13 billion Trans Mountain loan still may not be enough, Crown corporation says

Cabinet approved the $10 billion loan guarantee on April 29, 2022. Maki sent his message a couple weeks later to four people in the Calgary office of TD Securities who work in global energy, loan syndications and corporate credit, according to their LinkedIn profiles, and two more at the bank’s Toronto office.

He copied a lawyer and a vice-president for Trans Mountain, an executive at the Crown corporation and two officials at Finance Canada — a director of corporate finance and a senior advisor to the deputy minister.

The $10 billion in financing was structured as a revolving credit facility, which is sort of like a credit card, where the borrower can make withdrawals, repay and then make further withdrawals.

By the end of 2022, the pipeline company had withdrawn $7.2 billion from it, according to Canada Development Investment Corporation’s 2023 to 2027 corporate plan summary.

In exchange for the federal government’s guarantee of the loan, the company paid a fee. At the end of 2022 it had racked up $36.8 million in guarantee fees, according to the corporate plan.

The $10 billion deal had a one-year term. In May 2023, Trans Mountain secured a new financing deal, one with a two-year term and a higher borrowing limit of $13 billion, the corporate plan shows.

Stand.earth, the environmental advocacy group, obtained financial data in May that confirmed this new arrangement. The data shows all of Canada’s “big five” banks are again involved, as well as National Bank.

As of December 2022, Trans Mountain corporation was $23.3 billion in debt. In the four and a half years between the time the pipeline was bought by the government and the end of 2022, the pipeline company has sunk “over $18 billion” into the expansion project, the corporate plan confirmed.

Even so, Trans Mountain says it still needs more money.

The Crown corporation’s plan says an additional $3 to $5 billion of funding “will be required and has not been fully identified.” In the event that it can’t secure this funding, the Crown corporation said construction of the pipeline expansion would need to be halted, and workers laid off.

If the expansion project was cancelled, it said, “borrowings outstanding under the [loan] would have the government guarantee triggered.”

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

Labor’s offshore gas bill labelled ‘a betrayal’ by First Nations activists

Leaders with responsibilities for sea country on way to Canberra to lobby against legislationFollow our Australia news live blog for latest updatesGet our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcastThe Albanese government is facing major blowback over changes to its offshore gas bill, which the crossbench and environment groups have labelled “window dressing” that fails to prevent new rules watering down First Nations consultation.Seeking to clear the decks before Easter, the government is expected to reveal tweaks to its proposed vehicle efficiency standards this week. And on Monday Labor introduced amendments to add safeguards to the offshore gas bill after widespread concerns, including from within it own ranks.Sign up for Guardian Australia’s free morning and afternoon email newsletters for your daily news roundup Continue reading...

The Albanese government is facing major blowback over changes to its offshore gas bill, which the crossbench and environment groups have labelled “window dressing” that fails to prevent new rules watering down First Nations consultation.Seeking to clear the decks before Easter, the government is expected to reveal tweaks to its proposed vehicle efficiency standards this week. And on Monday Labor introduced amendments to add safeguards to the offshore gas bill after widespread concerns, including from within it own ranks.But the government will probably need Coalition support to pass its offshore petroleum and greenhouse gas storage bill, as the Greens leader, Adam Bandt, told parliament Labor were “climate con artists” prepared to “work with the climate deniers in the Coalition to fast-track offshore gas”.The OPGGS bill states that approved offshore gas projects are taken to be compliant with environmental laws even if they wouldn’t otherwise be.The bill has been panned by environmental groups, who are concerned it is an override designed to shelter offshore gas from imminent higher environmental standards, and First Nations groups, who warn it will hand power to the resources minister to rewrite regulations on consultation.On Monday the resources minister, Madeleine King, introduced changes requiring the environment minister to agree that changes to consultation are consistent with ecological sustainability development principles.The amendments include a sunset clause so that the override of the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act is phased out after 12 months.Kirsty Howey, the executive director of Environment Centre NT, said the requirement for new regulations to be consistent with ESD principles was “practically meaningless”.Louise Morris, oil and gas campaign manager at the Australian Marine Conservation Society, said ESD “is a principle, not something that has any legally enforceable powers or structures”.Environment groups have seized on a provision that, even if the resources minister fails to consult the environment minister, the validity of new regulations “will not be affected”, according to the explanatory memorandum. Howey said this meant the new safeguard was “technically pointless [and] nothing more than window dressing”.The government rejects the claim, arguing that if the ministers are at odds projects will need approval both from National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority and under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act.A group of First Nations advocates, including Raelene Cooper, Josie Alec and Bruce Pascoe, have written to the Albanese government warning that the bill is a “betrayal”.The group, who include First Nations leaders with responsibilities for sea country, will travel to Canberra on Tuesday to lobby against the bill, which they said was “intended to remove our consultation rights, rights to be heard over developments on our sea Country that affect our cultural heritage and songlines”.On Monday Bandt attempted to suspend standing orders in the House of Representatives, accusing Labor of being “more pro gas than Scott Morrison”.The Greens have offered the government support to pass vehicle efficiency standards, in return for Labor dropping the controversial provisions of the OPGGS bill.Guardian Australia understands the government has confidentially briefed stakeholders on vehicle emissions standards and is preparing to introduce minor amendments focused on light commercial vehicles and utes to bring them in line with US changes.skip past newsletter promotionOur Australian morning briefing breaks down the key stories of the day, telling you what’s happening and why it mattersPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain info about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. For more information see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotionThe climate change minister, Chris Bowen, said: “Obviously the changes being made to the US standards announced this week are of interest to us, and are one of the things we’re considering as we finalise this policy.”Auto industry leaders, including a group who attended a government briefing on the new vehicle efficiency standard last week, have called for tweaks including adding more credits into the scheme, as there are in the US version. An industry source who spoke to Guardian Australia was optimistic the government would ease its proposed NVES in line with these concerns.“Supercredits” for the cleanest of vehicles, “off-cycle credits” for specific green technologies used in cars that are not measured in tailpipe emissions, and “air conditioning credits” for using greener refrigerants, only feature in the least ambitious NVES model being considered but not the government’s preferred “option B”.Earlier on Monday Bandt fired a warning shot on both gas and emissions standards, warning that “Labor has to choose its dancing partner on climate change”In question time King accused the Greens of wanting “to continue a lawyers’ picnic of approvals” going through courts, which she said delayed traditional owners having their say. King insists the bill itself does not change the process of assessments or water down environmental standards.The Labor Environment Action Network, which had lobbied against elements of the original bill, said the amendments were a “workable resolution of a situation that threatened a huge own goal”.The independent MPs Zali Steggall, Zoe Daniel, and Sophie Scamps all criticised the changes as inadequate to fix the original bill.The independent senator David Pocock said: “The Albanese government legislating a backdoor approvals process for offshore gas stinks.”Annika Reynolds, national climate adviser of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said the ACF was still “deeply concerned” that the amendments did not address its “fundamental concerns”.

Are You Noise Sensitive? Here's How to Tell

Every person has a different idea of what makes noise “loud,” but there are some things we all can do to turn the volume down a little.

As a mom of three boys, I can barely hear my thoughts against the cacophony of my brood plotting their next Minecraft moves, bartering Pokémon cards, or singing a Weird Al parody. They’re not fighting or wreaking havoc, but life with three energetic school-aged kids is, well, noisy … and I’m noise sensitive.It turns out, I’m in good company. According to a 2023 PLOS One study conducted in the UK, nearly one in five adults have some level of noise sensitivity. And Richard J. Salvi, cofounder and director of the University at Buffalo's Center for Hearing and Deafness, tells me that at least 29 medical conditions are linked to noise sensitivity.People with hyperacusis or misophonia, for example, find everyday sounds unbearable. Other people have a sensory sensitivity (often from sensory processing disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, or autism). Still others may suffer from chronic ailments like migraine, fibromyalgia, or mental health issues, where loud sounds exacerbate symptoms.But even without a diagnosable “condition,” repetitive exposure to loud sounds can impact your health. The good news: Once you get a full hearing evaluation to ensure your sensitivity to sound doesn’t reflect early signs of a hearing disorder, myriad tools can make the noise level in your immediate environment more tolerable, or at least block your ability to hear it.Turn Down the VolumeIn the 1970s, the Environmental Protection Agency treated noise just like any other environmental pollutant. Society was conscientious of the effects of sound as a form of pollution, and the government regulated it as such. Unfortunately, since the Reagan Administration phased out funding for Noise Abatement and Control in 1981, our world has grown exponentially louder. Some of these noises are being piped directly into our ears (thank you, ear pods!), but others are a product of noise pollution.“Everyone has a different threshold of sensitivity to sound. But we know that repeated exposure to sounds above 75 to 85 decibels for more than eight hours a day can damage your auditory system,” says Deanna K. Meinke, an audiologist and audiology professor and researcher at the University of Northern Colorado and codirector of Dangerous Decibels. That’s about the noise output your lawnmower or power tool produces. But the louder the sound, the greater the risk to your hearing—even at shorter durations. In fact, listening at 100 decibels for just 15 minutes (about the sound level of a bulldozer) delivers the same hit to your hearing as seven or eight hours at 85 decibels.“Our ears distort sound when it’s loud,” Meinke says. “So whether you’re noise sensitive or not, turning the volume down is positive for everyone”—a point I tried to drive home when I introduced my boys to my newly downloaded NIOSH Sound Level Meter (SLM), a handy app that allows you to measure your “dose” so you can monitor your progress toward creating a quieter, calmer environment.Salvi tells me that normal speech hovers around 70 decibels. During the first week, SLM measured our mealtime conversations at 80 decibels and the boys’ roughhousing typically hits 90. When the boys were out of school, SLM alerted me that I’d reached 100 percent of my daily dose of loud sounds before 1 pm “Too loud!” I yelled, far above the 90-decibel level. Clearly, I needed more than a meter to preserve my sanity … and my hearing.Do You Hear What I Hear?Decades of research shows that excess noise creates a host of issues from the obvious (hearing loss and sleep problems) to the insidious (heart disease, metabolic disturbances, anxiety and depression). For the 20 to 40 percent of people who are noise sensitive, sounds above a certain decibel trigger the amygdala, the reptilian part of the brain designed to protect us, to fire on all cylinders.“The brain interprets a sound as toxic, and the nervous system reacts with the fight/flight response,” says Jennifer Brout, cofounder of the Sensory Processing and Emotion Regulation Program at Duke University, who suffers from misophonia. It’s not a psychological disorder, but rather a multidisciplinary disorder that ultimately has psychological effects because the affected person is in a constant state of stress.

Think Kate Middleton’s data-privacy fiasco is bad? US hospitals are under cyber-siege

Our medical data could be leaked as easily as the Princess of Wales. Here’s how to protect yourself

Data privacy officials in the United Kingdom are currently investigating a privacy breach that impacted the Princess of Wales, Kate Middleton, after three hospital workers reportedly sought access to the royal’s private medical information. But her majesty's medical privacy problems are all too familiar for many in the United States, where one in three people were impacted by a health-related data breach last year. The Associated Press reported last month that one cybersecurity analyst counted 46 attacks on hospitals in 2023, compared with 25 in 2022, accounting for an astonishing 133 million US patient records exposed last year. And hackers are making more money per cyberattack, with average payouts jumping from $5,000 in 2018 to $1.5 million last year. “Unless governments do something more meaningful, more significant than they have done to date, it’s inevitable that it’ll get worse,” the analyst said.  The Department of Health and Human Services, however, said total health care hacks climbed to 725 last year, their highest on record. As reported by USA Today, the worst of the hacks (the top 20 in which at least 1 million records were exposed) the vast majority targeted hospital contractors and medical vendors. Around 2.3 million Medicare beneficiaries — along with tens of millions of people in 2,000 companies, government agencies and universities — had data exposed when a Russian ransomware group hacked US government software created by a federal contractor, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “Unless governments do something more meaningful, more significant than they have done to date, it’s inevitable that it’ll get worse.” Following a massive cyberattack on a Chicago pediatric hospital on Jan. 31, officials from the US Department of Homeland Security likewise issued a warning: cyberattacks are growing quickly and hospitals are being targeted, along with doctors, medical vendors and other health care companies. More recently, HHS is currently investigating the massive Feb. 21 breach of a UnitedHealth Group subsidiary that likely exposed millions of patients’ sensitive data. “Given the unprecedented magnitude of this cyberattack, and in the best interest of patients and health care providers, OCR is initiating an investigation into this incident,” the HHS Office for Civil Rights said in a statement last week. Three things the US could do to protect data privacy Although controversial legislative efforts to ban TikTok have captured much of the nation’s attention, the more effective data-privacy move by Congress came this week as lawmakers in the House unanimously passed a bill barring third-party data brokers from selling your data to the US’ geopolitical adversaries, like Russia and China. As reported by Gizmodo, the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Adversaries Act (H.R. 7520) cleared the House Wednesday on a 414-0 vote and is now headed for the Senate.  Want more health and science stories in your inbox? Subscribe to Salon's weekly newsletter Lab Notes. The bill also bolsters previous efforts by the Federal Trade Commission to shore up sensitive health data — barring brokers from selling or sharing information like your precise geolocation data, genetic data and private emails and texts. RELATED: https://www.salon.com/2024/01/11/abortion-ftc-xmode-privacy-location-tech-data/ The Biden administration and Environmental Protection Agency are also moving to shore up state-level defenses while warning that “disabling cyberattacks” are hitting critical US water and waste systems, along with power grids. The administration has also recently pushed for better privacy-risk labeling on consumer smart-home devices and tech. What you can do to bolster your data privacy 1. Verify a breach If you’d like to check whether one of your email addresses has been compromised in a data breach or hack, you can visit haveibeenpwned.com and enter your email address in the site’s search bar. The site’s owner and creator, security expert Troy Hunt, has provided this free service since 2013, and the site can verify your email address against a database of nearly 8 billion compromised accounts. 2. Use credible, open source privacy tools When you finally get tired of having to keep track of (and routinely reset) dozens of passwords, consider installing open-source password manager Bitwarden in your browser. Usually, free privacy and cybersecurity tools are inadvisable, but Bitwarden is the exception. Offering the strongest free-tier service among competitors and compatible with nearly any browser, Bitwarden has nearly no learning curve and offers convenient instructions on importing your list of saved passwords. 3. Use decoy accounts and contaminate your data Any time you’re entering your name into a website to sign up for a new service or place an order, use two things: a fake identity and email account (to the maximum extent allowable by law), and contaminated data. The fake identity bit is self-explanatory. Contaminating the data is simple: While entering your information into any online form, put the name of the website or service you’re using into the field set aside for a middle name. For instance, if I start receiving junk mail and spam from random companies and it’s addressed to “Rae Amazon Hodge,” I’ll know exactly what company sold me out.

What will shift to zero-emission trucks cost? $1 trillion for charging alone, study says

The study, sponsored by the freight truck industry, adds to concerns over government mandates. But government officials say the move away from fossil fuels will have economic benefits.

A short-trip electric heavy truck gets charged at Total Transportation Services Inc. in Wilmington. (Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times) Fossil-fuel burning trucks spew alarming amounts of greenhouse gases, dangerous nitrogen oxides, lung-clogging particulate matter and a toxic stew of other pollutants.Getting rid of them will be costly — nearly $1 trillion, according to an industry study released Tuesday.Sponsored by the freight-hauling truck fleet industry, it concludes that charging infrastructure for a nationwide fleet of 100% electric trucks — from delivery trucks to big rigs — will cost $622 billion.Add to that an additional $370 billion on electric utilities to upgrade or install electric substations, overhead and underground lines, transformers, poles and fixtures to supply truck chargers. Electricity providers “would need to spend nearly the equivalent of what was spent on the entire system during the past 15 years,” the report says, pegging the past cost at $450 billion.Not covered in the report: the expense of the trucks themselves. Electric big rigs today cost hundreds of thousands of dollars each, or three to four times more than a diesel truck. California is spending billions in subsidies to make those trucks more affordable.The motor freight industry says the highly detailed report adds to the concern that government mandates are moving too fast.“It could put the supply chain at risk,” said Jim Mullen, chief strategy officer of the National Motor Freight Traffic Assn., a study sponsor. “It’ll make COVID look real tame if we don’t do this right.”Industry alarmism? Hard to say, in part because policymakers have not produced such comprehensive dollar-cost studies of their own. A 2023 California Department of Transportation report estimates that building a charging network with 475 to 525 chargers to serve electric trucks on major highway corridors would cost $10 billion to $15 billion, not including electric upgrade costs.The California Air Resources Board estimates that operating costs could be 22% to 33% lower for electric trucks than diesel or gasoline by 2030. (Generally, forecasts of future electric rates and fuel prices range widely depending on the source and the assumptions.)“California and the federal government are making unprecedented investments to prepare for a zero-emissions future that will bring multiple cost-saving benefits in reduced fuel and maintenance costs for fleet operators,” said Steven Cliff, the air board’s executive officer. “Cleaner air will also mean reduced health costs for Californians, and a future with fewer costly impacts from climate change.”State and federal officials have cited economic benefits of moving away from fossil fuel trucking: new jobs and industries created, reduction of climate risk, and, according to the air board, $26.5 billion in health-cost savings through 2050. The climate and pollution problems are real, and carry enormous social, economic and health costs. But the dollar costs of minimizing those problems will be borne by taxpayers, utility ratepayers, truck makers, fleet owners, shippers and retailers, and will be reflected in the price of consumer goods.Freight-hauling is a high-volume, low-margin endeavor. The cost of the transition matched with aggressive timelines imposed by government mandate could put enough freight-haulers out of business to disrupt freight traffic, the industry says. The study was conducted by Roland Berger, an international consulting company based in Munich, Germany. The report fills a data vacuum on electric truck transition costs, said Wilfried Aulbur, senior partner at the firm. “We didn’t see a comprehensive, systemic study to look at what it means to decarbonize transportation sectors,” he said. The industry is committed to cleaning up its vehicles, he said. “I don’t think anyone [involved in the study] is saying ‘let’s screw the next generation.’” But “we need to have a fact-based discussion around some of the limitations and some of the timelines involved.”More than 6 million on-site chargers and about 175,000 on-route chargers would be needed nationwide, the report said, and it listed “hidden or unforeseen costs”: site-specific issues like the need for conduits and clearances; the scale and costs of wiring and electrical components; utility upgrades to handle the increased load; and backup solutions in case vehicles are unable to charge at a specific site.California has assumed the national lead on decarbonizing transportation. Ten states have signed on to follow its regulatory lead in trucking. Under California mandate, by 2035, 100% of most two-axle trucks must be zero-emission; by 2039, big rigs with day cabs; by 2042, big rigs with sleeper cabs.That mandate covers fleets with more than 50 vehicles or annual revenue over $50 million; state, local and federal government fleets; and trucks that haul freight in and out of seaports.The most immediate concern of fleet operators: so-called drayage trucks that typically run shipping containers or bulk cargo back and forth from ports to rail yards and distribution centers, racking up a few dozen miles a day or so. (A small number travel hundreds of miles to their destinations.)The state is cracking down on drayage trucks first. Last April, the air resources board ruled that no fossil fuel trucks purchased after Jan. 1, 2024, would be allowed to enter a seaport in California. Operators of fossil fuel trucks bought before that date can get into ports until those trucks reach 18 years of age or 800,000 miles, whichever comes first. By 2035, only zero-emission trucks will be allowed inside.Drayage trucks were pinpointed for at least two reasons: Their noxious emissions disproportionately affect the health of people who live near seaports, who tend to live in low-income households. Also, because most drayage trucks travel short routes, there’s less need for high-powered truck chargers along the highway, easing the transition. The idea is that drayage trucks can use less powerful chargers at their home bases and fill up more cheaply at those slow chargers overnight.Yet, few electric drayage trucks have been sold thus far, and a major build-out of charger systems at drayage depots or at the ports is required. Startups such as Forum Mobility, WattEV and Voltera Power, and established companies including Schneider Electric and ABN, are building or leasing charging stations for freight trucks.There’s a long way to go to accommodate the state mandate, and heavy-duty truck fast chargers can cost more than $100,000 each.The trucks themselves are enormously expensive, and for now anyway, hard to find and buy. A typical diesel truck costs about $120,000. In recent months manufactures of electric big rigs raised their prices to as much as $450,000 to $500,000. Even those are scarce — many buyers are on months-long waiting lists.Drayage owners caught a break last December, when the air resources board announced it would delay enforcement of drayage rules until it receives permission from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to do so, under provisions of the federal Clean Air Act.Meantime, the state faces a lawsuit filed by the California Trucking Assn. last year. It claims that federal law bars California from enforcing zero-emission truck mandates on vehicles registered outside the state that cross the border into California.What are the truck fleets seeking? Among other things: Longer timelines to use biofuels in diesel engines that are in no way zero-emission, but do emit less pollution and fewer greenhouse gases than diesel trucks; rules that allow conversion of diesel engines to burn hydrogen fuel, which releases no greenhouse gas but does emit nitrogen oxide pollution, albeit far less than diesel fuel; a commitment to vehicle and charger subsidies; and a faster build-out of expensive utility substations needed to dispatch enough electricity to high-power truck chargers. Thus far, California regulators have drawn a firm stance on the timelines they’ve established.Truck stop owners have concerns too. Lisa Mullings is chief executive at Natso, an industry group that represents truck stops and travel centers and is another study sponsor. She said Natso members are preparing for the energy transition but want more help from utilities in setting up microgrids — self-contained energy generators using solar or wind power that bypass the electric grid — so they can get more control over electricity prices. “Travel centers have found business case impediments could be overcome if they could manage their own electricity [in a way] that didn’t require them to sell electricity to drivers at exorbitant costs just to break even,” Mullings said.Nobody said the switch away from fossil fuels would be easy. Newsletter Toward a more sustainable California Get Boiling Point, our newsletter exploring climate change, energy and the environment, and become part of the conversation — and the solution. You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.

The government wants to fast-track approvals of large infrastructure projects – that’s bad news for NZ’s biodiversity

New Zealand’s plants and animals are globally unique and underpin primary production and tourism. The government’s fast-tracking proposal threatens to erode the natural capital the economy relies on.

Getty Images/Gerald Corsi In the latest move to reform environmental laws in New Zealand, the coalition government has introduced a bill to fast-track consenting processes for projects deemed to be of national or regional significance. The Fast-track Approvals Bill, introduced under urgency on March 7, would take precedence over several current environmental laws and give ministers the power to skirt existing approval processes. Leaders of ten scientific societies that conduct biodiversity research in Aotearoa New Zealand, representing thousands of members (ourselves included), have called on the government to slow down the pace of reform. They warn that decision-making criteria are weighted towards development, not environmental protection or sustainable resource use, and undermine New Zealand’s obligations to protect the country’s unique and threatened biodiversity. New Zealand’s economy relies on the environment in many ways. One study estimated New Zealand’s land-based ecosystem services contributed NZ$57 billion to human welfare in 2012 (27% of the country’s GDP). This includes services such as crop pollination by insects, erosion control by plants and flood regulation by wetlands. The fast-track bill requires expert panels to provide recommendations to the relevant ministers within six months of a project being referred to them. This time frame is wholly unsuitable to making proper assessments of environmental impacts, including those on plants and animals, as surveys will likely be conducted at inappropriate times of the year. No time for on-site ecological assessments A key requirement of assessing impacts on biodiversity is to undertake new ecological surveys of the project site and surrounds. Such surveys identify the threatened species and ecosystems found on the site, catalogue where they are found and estimate their population numbers. This information is then used to determine how those species and ecosystems could be affected, and whether the project could be modified to avoid or mitigate these impacts. There are currently no directions in the bill for the expert panel to commission new ecological surveys. However, even if panels could do this, the six-month time frame precludes robust ecological surveys. Read more: Without a better plan, New Zealand risks sleepwalking into a biodiversity extinction crisis Thorough ecological assessments involve conducting surveys at multiple times throughout the year because certain species will only be present during particular seasons. For instance, reptiles, frogs, invertebrates and migratory species of birds are usually only detectable during warmer times of the year. Surveys for them during winter are unlikely to find these species. Even certain plants, such as orchids that can lie dormant underground as a tuber, have life cycles that make them difficult to detect. Many grasses are best identified when they are in flower. In many cases, restricting consenting to just six months means expert panels would have to make their assessments based only on existing ecological information. This is known as a “desktop assessment”. While a useful first step, these are not a replacement for on-the-ground surveys. This is particularly the case in New Zealand, where we have limited data on many species and for many parts of the country. For example, we don’t have sufficient data on most of New Zealand’s reptiles. Evidence-based decisions are critical Apart from the proposed fast-tracking of resource consents, the government has already repealed the Natural and Built Environment Act and the Spatial Planning Act. Both were enacted only last year as part of a new resource management regime. The government also plans to replace the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, which provides direction to local authorities on how to manage activities that affect the health of lakes and rivers. None of the recent and proposed changes to environmental legislation are responsive to the dual biodiversity and climate crises. They are also inconsistent with the government’s own stated goal of evidence-based decision making. Read more: Restoring ecosystems to boost biodiversity is an urgent priority – our ‘Eco-index’ can guide the way New Zealand’s plants, animals, fungi and ecosystems are globally unique. They underpin key economic sectors, especially primary production and tourism. But they are also threatened with extinction. More than 75% of New Zealand’s native species of reptile, bird, bat and freshwater fish are either threatened with extinction or at risk of becoming threatened. New Zealand has international obligations to conserve biodiversity under the Convention on Biological Diversity, which was signed in 1993. In 2022, New Zealand joined almost 200 member nations in adopting the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, which commits countries to protect 30% of land and ocean globally by 2030. Read more: Despite its green image, NZ has world's highest proportion of species at risk Much of New Zealand’s most at-risk indigenous biodiversity is found on private land and may be subject to detrimental impacts from land use and development pressures. The fast-tracking agenda threatens to undermine New Zealand’s progress on biodiversity protection and other key environmental issues. It erodes rather than sustains the natural capital on which the economy depends. New Zealand’s scientific societies are urging the coalition government to allow adequate time for appropriate parliamentary select committee processes and thorough public consultation on the bill. They call for a comprehensive legislative and policy framework, centred on the protection of environmental values and sustainable resource management, to ensure development occurs in ways that don’t further degrade natural capital. The authors thank Dr Fleur Maseyk for her comments and discussions on this piece. Tim Curran receives funding from the New Zealand Ministry for Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), Fire and Emergency New Zealand, the Hellaby Grasslands Trust, Marlborough District Council, Brian Mason Scientific and Technical Trust, and the Lincoln University Argyle Trust. Tim is the Submissions Coordinator and a past President of the New Zealand Ecological Society, and coordinated and helped draft the open letter to the government referred to in this article.Jo Monks receives funding from the New Zealand Department of Conservation and Auckland Zoological Park. She is Vice President of the New Zealand Ecological Society and a council member of the Society for Research on Amphibians and Reptiles in New Zealand. Jo is a previous employee of the New Zealand Department of Conservation. Jo signed the open letter to government referred to in this article on behalf of the New Zealand Ecological Society.

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