Instead impose fines later if anything goes awry

Lisa Needham of Daily Kos wrote about the Becerra v. Braidwood case to come before the Supreme Court. It challenges the constitutionality of preventive care requirements in the Affordable Care Act. These are things like testing for sexually transmitted diseases and coverage for PrEP, the drug that can prevent transmission of HIV, used by a lot of gay men. The case is brought by a company owned by Christian conservatives who don’t like STD testing and PrEP because they are “complicit in facilitating homosexual behavior.” Conservatives are attacking the ACA in court (they failed in Congress) with a two part plan. First, try to overturn people getting basic health care. Second, overturn mandating coverage for things evangelicals object to. This case does both. The case has already been through the court of Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas. He was appointed by Bush II. He gave the plaintiffs everything they wanted and more. Here’s where it’s really a problem. O’Connor blocked all preventive care requirements for insurance plans.

So, no more zero-cost coverage of heart statins (drugs that lower cholesterol), lung cancer screenings, and drugs that reduce the risk of breast cancer. Physical therapy for older people to decrease falls? Gone. Prenatal nutritional supplements? Gone. Screening for depression? Gone.

The 5th Circuit Court, reliably conservative, agreed, though they said O’Connor’s ruling applies only to the conservative company that brought the suit, not to the nation as a whole. However, that’s an invitation for more companies to sue for the same ruling. So both parties requested the Supremes take the case.

Perhaps worst of all, the conservatives on the Supreme Court lack compassion. Justice Samuel Alito will not be swayed by the fact that preventive-care requirements help increase health equity, ensuring better outcomes for women of color. Justice Clarence Thomas will not be bothered by the fact that upholding O’Connor’s decision could eliminate nearly three-quarters of the ACA’s preventive care for women, infants, and children. Justice Amy Coney Barrett will not care if getting rid of PrEP coverage causes HIV rates to skyrocket. This case gives the conservative justices a chance to make life harder for people they hate while also making the work of government much more difficult. It’s hard to imagine they’ll pass up the opportunity to do just that.

Alex Samuels of Kos worked from a report from the Associated Press discussing career civil servants who work in the National Security Council, the people who do the work to make sure the nation is secure. These people are being scrutinized for their fealty to the nasty guy. As one might expect, many are quitting. That might be what the nasty guy wants. But that means the NSC will be understaffed, maybe for quite a while. And that leaves our national security exposed. Andrew Mangan of Kos wrote that the nasty guy’s desire to make Canada a US state would backfire. The reason is simple. While Canada has five parties represented in their Parliament, even the most conservative party would correspond to centrist Republicans with the rest further to the left. That means if they were a part of the US in the last election they would have added three times more votes for Harris than for the nasty guy. Canada has 41.5 million people, about two million more than California. That means it would get 48 House seats. Democrats would get 31 seats and Republicans 17, which would flip the chamber. Yeah, gerrymandering would balance that out a bit. As for the Senate, would all of Canada be one state? If so, Democrats would not flip the Senate. But if each province became a state that would be twenty more Democratic senators. Alix Breeden of Kos discussed the real reason why the nasty guy wants Greenland. He has said the US needs Greenland for national and economic security. That’s because...

Greenland is a treasure trove of minerals the U.S. needs to compete with China, and the island hasn’t been quick (enough) to fork them over. More specifically, Greenland has neodymium and dysprosium. These extremely rare elements—used for electric motors, wind turbines, and other electronics—are found in healthy amounts and lay widely untouched across Greenland. Thanks to climate change, the once iced-over minerals are now up for grabs. ... With Greenland’s minerals—not to mention their untapped oil resources—the U.S. would be able to rely less, or not at all, on China’s supply.

The nasty guy isn’t the only one trying to grab, though the locals are pretty good at giving the boot. China has tried, as have the UK, Canada, and US billionaires. Musk’s companies SpaceX and Tesla are well known. He has others, including The Boring Company, as in boring holes in the ground. Daniel Rothberg of ProPublica and Dayvid Figler of City Cast Las Vegas, in an article posted on Kos, did some research into that company. Musk proposed an idea, a way to reduce traffic. He would bore tunnels under a city and supply electric cars to whisk people through those tunnels. Sounds pretty sweet! But California said no. So did Illinois. And Baltimore/Washington. The reasons for the rejection is that Musk’s environmental impact studies were woefully inadequate. Finally, Las Vegas said yes. Well, the Convention and Visitors Authority did. They started with a loop under the Convention Center, a 0.8 mile route that opened in 2021. It’s a private project and receives no federal funding. There are plans for more later, perhaps 104 stations across 68 miles of tunnels under the city and to the airport.

The project is also realizing Musk’s notion of how government officials should deal with entrepreneurs: avoid lengthy reviews before building and instead impose fines later if anything goes awry. Musk’s views on regulatory power have taken on new significance in light of his close ties to President-elect Donald Trump and his role in a new effort to slash rules in the name of improving efficiency. The Las Vegas project, now well under way, is a case study of the regulatory climate Musk favors.

Impose fines later if anything goes awry? I hope you’re enough of an environmentalist to understand the gigantic flaw in that statement. Tunneling underground encounters groundwater. It may contain contaminates or the boring process may introduce them. Improper disposal of that water pollutes the disposal area. And cleaning up that contamination is much harder than preventing it. The consequences of “gone awry” can be quite severe. Its victims may be permanently harmed. Paying fines may not repair or compensate for the harm. That’s especially true if the company pays top lawyers to litigate the case to avoid paying the fine. I don’t intend to declare that all construction should be banned because someone or something might be harmed, perhaps severely. But we have environmental and workplace safety rules so that companies know the ways to reduce the harm, to learn from and understand the situations that have happened in the past and have a chance of happening now. Musk wants to avoid all those “regulations,” better understood as worker and environmental protections. Yeah, the boring encountered groundwater. And Musk is accused of handling it in ways that increase the damage. Boring workers have also filed complaints about other workplace hazards. Yet, Musk still has been working to circumvent oversight. Tunneling to the airport means complying with Federal Aviation Administration regulations and federal environmental reviews. So the company plans to end its tunnels perhaps a mile away. And that does nothing for congestion at the terminal – which better traditional mass transit could relieve. Even with the abysmal environmental record the Las Vegas City Council is still in favor of extending the tunnels. That’s because hotels are pleading for better ways to move the crowds around. Musk has the nasty guy’s ear. Musk wants to operate without consumer, worker, and environmental protections. Consumers, workers, and the environment will be harmed. He’ll work to block the fines. In the comments of a pundit roundup on Kos are several cartoons about how close Musk and other billionaires are to the nasty guy. And exlrrp posted a meme:

Musk’s Wealth 2012: $2 billion 2024: $447 billion Bezos’s Wealth 2012: $18 billion 2024: $249 billion Zuckerberg’s Wealth 2012: $44 billion 2024: $224 billion USA Minimum Wage 2009: $7.25 an hour 2024: $7.25 an hour

In the comments of a pundit roundup that has been hiding in my browser tabs since early August is a meme posted by user Proginoskes.

Bubba: I vote Republican to keep Foreigners, Minorities, Women, Socialists, Gays, and Liberals from ruining my life. Billionaire: I vote Republican to keep this moron from realizing I’m the only one ruining his life.