Getty Kurt Busch crashed at Pocono Raceway.

The sanctioning body is taking steps to address the safety concerns of the Next Gen car. NASCAR will implement changes to the rear of the cars while footing the bill for the added costs.

Bozi Tatarevic obtained a leaked memo highlighting the changes, and he broke them down piece by piece for Road and Track. Chief among them is the introduction of new rear bumper struts. These supports hold the bumper to the rear clip. They will have a change in thickness to 0.080 inches, which should help them crumple better during rear impacts.

It is my understanding that NASCAR has decided on a plan of action to Improve safety of the Next Gen car that will result in the removal and modification of some of the tubing in the center section and rear clip with a process that will start soon with a target for next season. pic.twitter.com/Qaj0KVPTdb

— Bozi Tatarevic (@BoziTatarevic) October 12, 2022

Additionally, the rear clip and center section will be altered during the off-season. Technique Chassis, the single-source vendor that maintains these components, will do the work as the company tries to reduce the stiffness.

Tatarevic reported in his article that NASCAR would pay for the initial updates that will take place over the winter. The sanctioning body then confirmed that this is the case, which could be seen as an olive branch based on the contentious past few months featuring drivers making frustrated comments to the media.

The Changes Take Place Following an Important Meeting

GettyBrad Keselowski tests the Next Gen car at Daytona International Speedway.

These changes take place after NASCAR executives held a 75-minute meeting with drivers at Charlotte Motor Speedway. They showed off the data from exact crash tests and set up these changes for the upcoming season.

NASCAR President Steve Phelps provided some details about the meeting during NBC’s pre-race show at the Charlotte Roval. He shouldered the blame for taking too long to bring everyone together to address the safety concerns, and he revealed that there will now be weekly meetings between NASCAR and the drivers.

“Safety is the single most important thing for NASCAR,” Phelps said. “I think we have a two-decade history that would suggest that is a true statement. So are there things we need to do to this race car to make it safer? Yes, particularly in the rear of the car. But there also are things with this car that are safer than the last car. So we are going to continue to iterate on the car working with our drivers.”

The Rear Changes Are Only 1 Step

GettyBubba Wallace tests the Next Gen car.

The upcoming changes to the rear of the Next Gen cars should help address the collisions that resulted in both Kurt Busch and Alex Bowman missing races due to concussions. However, it is only one step.

There will be multiple other conversation pieces in the future as NASCAR and the teams continue to work on making improvements. After all, the rear impacts were not the only problem that the drivers pointed out. Kevin Harvick, in particular, talked about how “every hit hurts” while Denny Hamlin called for a complete redesign.

The pursuit of safety will never stop, so there will certainly be continued discussions about other changes in the future. For now, the rear impacts will remain the focus as NASCAR and the teams try to address the biggest problems before the 2023 Daytona 500.

Wed, 12 Oct 2022 05:17:00 -0500 John Newby en-US text/html https://heavy.com/sports/nascar/nascar-implementing-next-gen-changes-2023/ Killexams : Implementing IP Management Software (Part I): Identifying Complexities and Dangers During Implementation

“IP teams often embark on the IPMS journey with great optimism. Once in the thick of implementation, however, they may experience a turbulent journey.”

Success is not delivering a feature; success is learning how to solve the customer’s problem.

~ Eric Ries

Imagine that your family has decided to build a new home. You’ve got the vision, but you need to call in the pros—a well-established, highly expert homebuilder with a cadre of architects, designers, contractors, and tradespeople.

You’re relying upon the builder’s expertise to thoughtfully scope the project and prepare you for what lies ahead. This includes (a) helping you understand what financial and other commitments will be required of you; (b) educating you on challenges you’ll face along the way; and (c) highlighting available offerings that align with your vision.

You’re impressed by what the builder’s sales team promises to deliver, so you sign a contract. The price tag is substantial, but you feel you owe it to your family’s future well-being to move forward.

The sales team hands off the project to the builder’s design and construction teams. It’s then that a sobering reality begins to settle in, marked by a litany of unfulfilled promises, delays, surprises, cost overruns, uneven performance, and unresponsiveness.

The only way to salvage the project is for your family to make up the difference, all at incredible sacrifice to daily life. You essentially take a leadership role in the project, do many tasks you thought you’d contracted for, and chip in more money to get the work done. You also give up on the builder fulfilling all contract items.

Now imagine that your company or law firm has decided to implement intellectual property management software (IPMS) with a vendor.

In a worst-case implementation scenario, you may feel like you’re reliving the above homebuilding saga.

Indeed, IP teams often embark on the IPMS journey with great optimism. Once in the thick of implementation, however, they may experience a turbulent journey.

Armed with knowledge of what can go wrong, your enterprise can take proactive steps to drive stronger vendor performance and successfully leverage the power of your chosen IPMS.

IP Management Software

Well known to IP professionals, IP management software provides functionality related to IP assets (e.g., patents and trademarks), disputes, operations, and/or tasks. Other descriptors for such software include IP management system, IP asset management system or software, IP portfolio management software or solution, IP lifecycle management software or solution, and IP docketing system.

IPMS vendors, providers, or developers abound in the IP software and services industry.

In its most basic sense, an IPMS is a database of IP records of an enterprise (e.g., a corporation) or multiple enterprises (e.g., multiple clients of a law firm or multiple business units of a group of corporate affiliates). Besides storage of IP asset data, an IPMS may provide docketing functions to enable the tracking of legal and organizational deadlines and related tasks.

IPMS software has come a long way from its docketing-centered roots. Similar to other enterprise teams such as finance, product management, engineering, marketing, and sales, IP teams are increasingly seeking workflow tools that (a) reduce time-consuming administrative tasks; (b) enable more collaboration within the IP team, with other stakeholders in the enterprise, and with external parties; and (c) help their operations to become data-driven.

The IP software and services industry has taken note. Many IPMSs now provide functionality related to portfolio management, invention disclosure submission, workflows to automate or semi-automate actions, document management, patent annuities, trademark renewals, analytics, invoice submission and processing, and the like. Vendors also are starting to introduce new connectivity (e.g., to cloud services) and modern interfaces to support more optimized workflows, digital transformation, and intelligent automation.

Your company’s or law firm’s decision to buy, implement, and use an IPMS may be quite consequential. Implementation and subscription costs may be high. You may need to commit substantial time and other non-monetary resources to support implementation and ongoing productive use.

No two IPMSs and no two enterprises are the same, resulting in significant variability among implementations and implementation projects.

For example, an enterprise using one IPMS may opt to switch to a new, different IPMS. The new IPMS vendor must migrate data from the current system to the new system.

When an enterprise doesn’t have an existing IPMS, datasets must be created from scratch or aggregated from multiple disparate sources. In one such scenario, a corporation’s IP asset data historically has exclusively resided in respective docket systems of its outside patent or trademark counsel. Now, the corporation wishes to implement its own IPMS to provide a full view (e.g., “shadow docket”) of its IP portfolio, or perhaps to begin insourcing IP work.

Another paradigm involves a corporation comprising multiple distinct business units, divisions, or other subgroups that apply different processes, procedures, and ways of viewing their associated IP. The corporation has decided to implement a singular IPMS that permits customization by business units or standardization of operational practices across such units.

Journey to a Live IPMS

An enterprise’s IPMS journey generally fits within four stages:

The evaluation stage. The enterprise may examine one or more candidate IPMSs, evaluating their worthiness for adoption based on criteria such as functionality, cost, and reputation. The vendor’s sales team interfaces with representatives of the enterprise, touting the merits of the IPMS via informational meetings, demonstrations, other dialogue, and the provision of test or trial environments.
The negotiation stage. After the enterprise zeros in on an IPMS, contract negotiations begin. Negotiations may be brief, wherein the enterprise signs the vendor’s contract with no or minimal back and forth. Or, extensive, protracted negotiations occur. Detailed scopes of work for implementation may be developed, presented, and refined. Commercial, technical, and legal terms may be highly negotiated, such as related to cost, subscription term, functionality being licensed, and system performance.
The implementation stage. Upon contract execution, the vendor’s implementation team takes over, with an objective of getting the IPMS up and running for use by the enterprise. This is sometimes termed getting to “go-live” or “going live.” During this pivotal stage, implementation tasks may be performed by multiple vendor team members and necessitate interactions with, and involvement of, many enterprise team members. Exemplary activities under the implementation umbrella include data and document migration, data validation, system configuration, user acceptance testing (UAT), and user training.
The subscription stage. When go-live is reached, the enterprise becomes a subscriber or user of the IPMS, and its customer account may be handed off to another vendor team. Notably, its journey has only just begun: Life as a subscriber may usher in a plethora of new challenges, including (a) the need to revamp the enterprise’s internal procedures to enable use of the system; (b) recognition that IPMS configuration changes may be needed based on current and evolving IP team processes; (c) upheaval associated with upgrading to new IPMS versions; and (d) inconsistent vendor performance. Beyond subscription fees, the vendor may charge for development work related to new projects, such as projects to customize the user’s experience or deliver other requested functionality. Whether the vendor and its IPMS deliver what the enterprise is seeking may not become clear initially, and the parties’ relationship may be tested over time.

The Complexities of Implementation

Some IPMS implementations may be relatively compact and straightforward. An enterprise may have a small portfolio of IP assets; it may have an existing IPMS containing clean data that merely needs to be migrated to another IPMS; or it only requires an entry-level IPMS for basic docketing functions.

Other IPMS implementations may be complex or extremely complex. In particular:

An enterprise may have thousands or tens of thousands of IP assets that require corresponding records in the new IPMS. Data may currently reside in a single system whose data fields and formats diverge widely from those of the new IPMS, or in many disparate systems with similar divergence. In either event, data may not be clean or complete.
Metadata about the IP assets may need to be inputted or corrected. Organizational data may need to be created for corporate legal entities and law firms managing IP prosecution. Product, technology, brand, or billing data may need to be confirmed and associated fields populated, sometimes manually on an asset-by-asset basis.
Massive amounts of document data may need to be migrated to and ingested by the IPMS.
Security policies, workflows, and other IPMS configurations may need to be devised and programmed.
Conversion programs may need to be developed to enable unidirectional or bidirectional data transfer with third-party systems, such as billing systems.
Many vendor and enterprise participants may be involved in the implementation, with other projects or duties vying for their bandwidth.
A vendor doesn’t intimately know the enterprise’s business. Nor is the enterprise likely expert in, let alone moderately experienced with, IPMS implementations.

The list of complexities goes on.

Troubling Scenarios During Implementation

What can go wrong during implementation? Potentially many things. Enterprises may experience turbulence such as:

1. Lackluster project leadership and execution

An enterprise may discover that its vendor approaches implementation principally as an exercise to migrate data and provision IPMS features, rather than as a project to deliver solutions closely aligned with the enterprise’s vision and needs.

For instance, the vendor makes no meaningful attempt to ascertain the enterprise’s current organizational, competitive, and IP ecosystem; its imagined future state; or other pertinent fundamentals. The vendor says things to the effect of, “Our software does this,” versus “What are your pain points?”, “What do you want to accomplish?”, and “This is how we can help you get there.” It seems to lack the desire or capacity to truly lead the project; passion for innovation and high service delivery are in short supply.

As a result, the enterprise expends significant energies just trying to be heard by the vendor. It feels that it must take the lead to compensate for the vendor’s lack of direction.

In addition to demonstrating poor leadership, a vendor may struggle mightily with execution of its implementation plan. A project team that acts passively, reactively, or incompetently is undesirable in any IPMS context. However, in particularly complex implementations, the enterprise’s troubles will be substantially compounded by the vendor’s shaky performance.

2. A Pandora’s box of unwelcome surprises

Surprises can arise in every implementation. In an implementation gone south, an enterprise may confront numerous surprises that seemingly could have been avoided but for the vendor’s action or inaction. Examples include:

The IPMS doesn’t do what the sales team said it can do.
The IPMS theoretically can do what the sales team said it can do, but the vendor won’t actualize the relevant functionality unless the enterprise pays for custom software development or other services not contracted or budgeted for.
The sales team neglected to highlight an aspect of the IPMS that renders it undesirable to the enterprise or incompatible with its technology or operational infrastructure or other intended use cases.
The sales team glossed over technical challenges or limitations related to the IPMS or its interaction in the enterprise’s ecosystem, assuring the enterprise that they could be easily surmounted.
The sales team grossly underestimated or underrepresented the time it would reasonably take to complete the implementation stage.
The parties’ contract doesn’t clearly address, or is silent on, a troublesome situation that the vendor could have foreseen based on its work with other customers yet neglected to factor into its contract template.

3. Revisionist storytelling

As implementation problems arise, go-live seems ever distant, and it’s unable to collect subscription fees, a vendor may take strained positions in hopes of bringing money in the door.

For example, contrary to a negotiated contract and the clear understanding of the parties, a vendor suddenly asserts that it’s owed subscription fees despite not having completed the implementation stage and delivered the IPMS for the enterprise’s use. The enterprise is asked to accept the notion that go-live means to provide a test environment or perform implementation tasks.

4. Poor relationship management

The implementation stage may reveal flagrant weaknesses in how the vendor approaches its customer relationships. The vendor may consistently stumble in such foundational areas as managing expectations, fostering healthy communications, and resolving major and minor problems. These deficiencies erode the enterprise’s trust and hamper the parties’ ability to navigate the turbulence of implementation.

5. Massive allocation of enterprise resources

An implementation may require significantly more commitment from the enterprise than the vendor stated would be reasonably required. Internal stakeholders, including IP team or practice group members, must dedicate precious additional time, effort, and money to support the implementation and bring it to fruition.

Dangers of an IPMS Implementation Gone Wrong

Many of the above scenarios stem from the vendor. Simply put, it overpromised and undelivered. Others may be unavoidable, a byproduct of complexity or other realities that the parties did or could not anticipate despite their best intentions.

Whatever the cause, a troubled IPMS implementation brings dangers to the enterprise beyond delays and extra costs.

The enormous time devoted to the project takes team members away from other activities and disrupts ongoing work. Added costs and prolonged project completion may undermine the credibility of enterprise leaders who championed adoption of the IPMS. Team morale may suffer.

Moreover, a plagued implementation may sabotage a team’s efforts to deliver visionary, disruptive changes to the enterprise.

To avoid these dangers, companies and law firms should take proactive steps to ensure as successful an IPMS implementation as possible, which we will explore in Part II of this series.

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 04:17:00 -0500 en text/html https://www.ipwatchdog.com/2022/10/11/implementing-ip-management-software-part-identifying-complexities-dangers-implementation/id=151958/ Killexams : DD2 shares plans for implementing eLearning program following Hurricane Ian success

SUMMERVILLE — Following the success with eLearning during Hurricane Ian, Dorchester District 2 is working on implementing an eLearning system so students can stay up to date on schoolwork in the event of inclement weather or utility interruptions.

Chad Daugherty, deputy superintendent, said during Hurricane Ian, DD2 used Microsoft Teams for students and teachers to interact with each other.

Part of the success from Hurricane Ian came from preparation, Daugherty said. Around noon on Sept. 28, the district informed the teachers there was a possibility they would have to transition into asynchronous learning for the following two days — meaning students would be completing their classwork and homework on their own time, and not with a set schedule.

“(The teachers) had students download the lessons before they left just in case they didn’t have internet,” Daugherty said.

DD2 did eLearning for Sept. 29 and 30. Daugherty said the district only has five eLearning days they can use, and also has three make-up days built into the calendar. The district then has to make up those days at the end of the year unless the governor gives them a waiver.

Superintendent Shane Robbins said he had heard mostly good feedback regarding their quick transition to eLearning for those two days.

“We saw things that we thought were done well, but we also saw some opportunities for growth and improvement, but they’re things that we were already working on,” Robbins said. “It’s just that Ian came in and said, ‘No, you’re going to have to utilize eLearning now. I’m not waiting on you to finish these things you're trying to accomplish and make better.’”

The district is planning on using Schoology, a learning management system, for eLearning and is currently in the process of implementing it. With this system, teachers can upload just about anything for their classes.

“This is like a digital grade book on steroids. It’s got your lesson planning, it’s got your assessments, it’s got your syllabus, it’s got all the relevant materials for that particular class,” Robbins said. “We’ve taken what used to be in a teacher’s binder, and day by day, they’ll have to share that information and it allows them to forecast out in real time, and you don’t have to wait.”

Robbins said South Carolina as a whole has only started implementing eLearning in the past five years. Most school districts didn’t use learning management systems until COVID-19 hit, and the state quickly realized a learning management system was critical for digital curriculum.

Robbins said when he was previously superintendent in Kershaw County, the school district used Canvas as their learning management system. He said DD2 had considered using Blackboard as the learning management system, but when they noticed several other school districts used Schoology, DD2 went that direction instead.

All principals in the district have been trained in using Schoology, and Daugherty said he hopes to have the program fully implemented by the 2023-24 school year.

Daugherty said the implementation of Schoology in the district will help by adding digital tools into the classroom.

“This does not take the place of the teacher. This is a blended learning environment,” Daugherty said. “This is going to help provide structure and have some common language across the district.”

Robbins said even with the implementation of Schoology, the teacher is and will always be the most important focus in the classroom for student achievement.

“What (Schoology) does is it allows (teachers) to spend more time working with students and less time doing some of those task-oriented things that aren’t specifically related to student achievement,” Robbins said. “We think it’s a win-win approach for teachers and students alike.”

Parents will also be able to access Schoology, so they’ll be able to keep up with what’s going on in their children’s classes, Daugherty said.

Both he and Robbins say they’re optimistic with how Schoology will impact DD2 once it’s fully implemented.

Thu, 13 Oct 2022 04:30:00 -0500 en text/html https://www.postandcourier.com/news/dd2-shares-plans-for-implementing-elearning-program-following-hurricane-ian-success/article_aff43d2c-497d-11ed-b4fb-07d3164defbe.html Killexams : Biden administration mulls implementing humanitarian parole program for Venezuelan migrant surge

Eric Gay/AP

FILE - Migrants gather their personal items as they wait to be processed by the Border Patrol after illegally crossing the Rio Grande River from Mexico into the United States at Eagle Pass, Texas, Friday, Aug. 26, 2022. Venezuelans have surpassed Guatemalans and Hondurans to become the second-largest nationality stopped at the U.S. border in August 2022 after Mexicans. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)

President Joe Biden and his administration are considering a plan for undocumented Venezuelan migrants who have surged in numbers at the southwestern U.S. border in record amounts.

Biden's White House is mulling over the option of implementing a humanitarian parole scheme comparable to one offered to Ukrainian migrants, working on trying to deter more from crossing the southern U.S. border illegally.

As the New York Times reported, for the first time, the amount of arrests of undocumented migrants at the U.S. southwestern border has surpassed two million in just one year.

A humanitarian parole program would allow a family member or a sponsor in the U.S. to apply on behalf of a refugee. The sponsor would have to commit to providing them with financial assistance while they are in the U.S.

More than 150,000 Venezuelans have been taken into custody at the U.S. southern border between October 2021 and the end of August.

While the program for Ukrainian refugees received bipartisan support in Washington, GOP lawmakers have appeared less receptive to the idea being implemented for Venezuelans.

While the humanitarian parole program would not apply to Venezuelans already in the United States, lawmakers and the Biden administration hope implementing the program would encourage migrants to arrive in the U.S. at an official port of entry.

Tue, 11 Oct 2022 20:26:00 -0500 en text/html https://www.kgun9.com/news/national/biden-administration-mulls-implementing-humanitarian-parole-program-for-venezuelan-migrant-surge Killexams : Meta Is Implementing A Hiring Freeze–What Does This Signal About Big Tech?

Last month, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg said he aims to ‘plan somewhat conservatively’ and will ‘further restructure' the big tech company.

Companies around the world are bracing themselves for a looming recession and have subsequently taken steps to cut costs. It looks like Meta is no exception.

Employees of the Facebook parent company announced late last month it would implement a hiring freeze and “restructuring”, according to a Bloomberg News report.

Chief executive Mark Zuckerberg shared via a company memo that the uncertain macroeconomic environment was the cause for the changes, particularly as their advertisers trim spending in anticipation of a recession.

“I had hoped the economy would have more clearly stabilized by now, but from what we’re seeing it doesn’t yet seem like it has, so we want to plan somewhat conservatively,” Zuckerberg told employees during a weekly Q&A session, as reported by Bloomberg.

According to the outlet, Meta decreased their plans to hire engineers by at least 30% this year, as Reuters reported in June. Meta shared a statement made in a July earnings call:

“Our plan is to steadily reduce headcount growth over the next year,” he said. “Many teams are going to shrink so we can shift energy to other areas, and I wanted to give our leaders the ability to decide within their teams where to double down, where to backfill attrition, and where to restructure teams while minimizing thrash to the long-term initiatives.”

Meta isn’t the only large corporation tightening their purse strings.

ESSENCE previously reported that Netflix cited the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and over-hiring during rapid growth periods as reasons for their mass layoffs over the summer. Other tech giants like Robinhood, Twitter, Glossier and Better are a part of a growing list that are continually letting people go.

Recent data from LinkedIn shows that fintech has also been trimming their workforce. Forbes reported that Chicago-based debit card company M1, reduced its team of 369 people to 349 in one month. Neobank reported a slight decrease in employees on LinkedIn as well. PointCard, a debit rewards startup reported 105 employees in January and now it’s down to 61.

Thu, 06 Oct 2022 10:44:00 -0500 Jasmine Browley en-US text/html https://www.essence.com/news/meta-layoffs-recession-big-tech-netflix-spotify/ Killexams : States will play key role in implementing climate law

Comment

Good morning and welcome to The Climate 202! Thanks to everyone who sent us feedback on the newsletter for its first anniversary. While we can't respond to all of you individually, we really appreciate the reader input. But first:

Exclusive: States will play key role in implementing climate law to decarbonize power sector, paper finds

The recently passed climate law will position the United States to achieve 73 to 76 percent clean electricity by 2030 — within striking distance of President Biden's goal of 80 percent clean electricity by the end of the decade, according to multiple independent modelers.

But meeting this ambitious target will depend, in large part, on “optimal” implementation of the law at the state level, according to a paper shared with The Climate 202 before its broader release on Thursday.

The paper from Energy Innovation, a San Francisco-based climate think tank, focused on the clean energy incentives in the sweeping climate measure known as the Inflation Reduction Act.

The authors noted that at least four institutions — the research firm Rhodium Group, the think tank Resources for the Future, Princeton University and Energy Innovation — have modeled the law's impacts.
The four modeling teams generally agree that the United States could reach 73 to 76 percent clean electricity by 2030 and could reduce electricity-sector emissions 67 to 78 percent by 2030 relative to 2005 levels.

However, this potential transformation of the nation's power sector “will not happen without new state policy,” the Energy Innovation paper concludes.

In particular, the paper says, state public utility commissions and state lawmakers will play a significant role in realizing this transformation.

“The states — and the electric utilities they regulate — are central actors that will determine how much investment takes place and how much emissions fall as a result of the inflation Reduction Act,” said Mike O'Boyle, Energy Innovation's director of electricity policy, who co-authored the paper along with senior policy analyst Dan Esposito and policy analyst Michelle Solomon.

‘A big opportunity’

Take state public utility commissions, or PUCs. While they often fly under the radar, PUCs perform a crucial task: Regulating monopoly utilities and overseeing their long-term planning.

The clean energy tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act will cause the cost of wind, solar and other clean energy technologies to decline dramatically over the next decade.
That means utilities now have a greater financial incentive to invest in renewable energy and transition away from fossil fuels, climate advocates say.
In turn, “PUCs now have a stronger duty than ever to investigate and induce utilities to invest in clean energy on behalf of consumers,” the Energy Innovation paper says.

Meanwhile, state lawmakers can introduce or increase clean electricity standards, which require utilities to serve customers with a certain percentage of clean energy.

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia have adopted standards that require 100 percent clean electricity by 2050 or sooner.
By making clean energy even cheaper, the climate law could provide an opening for state lawmakers to strengthen these standards, better aligning them with Biden's target of 100 percent clean electricity by 2030.

“The incentives in the Inflation Reduction Act provide a big opportunity for states that want to move on clean electricity to move even faster,” O'Boyle said.

Caveats

Of course, the impact of the climate law will also depend on successful implementation at the federal level, according to the paper's authors and other experts.

In particular, the Internal Revenue Service still needs to issue much-anticipated guidance on how to take advantage of the clean energy tax credits, said Ben King, an associate director at Rhodium Group who was not involved with the Energy Innovation paper.

“Even before states worry about what to do, the IRS needs to issue guidance on how the new language will be interpreted and how developers can qualify for it,” King said.

Experts have also expressed concern that federal implementation of the Inflation Reduction Act could be hampered by supply chain constraints, labor shortages, and delays in building new transmission lines to carry more clean energy across the country.

“The models agree that all of this good stuff will happen because of the IRA,” King said, “but there are certainly challenges to achieving it.”

On the Hill

In Virginia’s 2nd District, candidates square off on energy policy

Rep. Elaine Luria (D-Va.) and her Republican challenger state Sen. Jen A. Kiggans (Virginia Beach) had tense exchanges on energy policy and other key issues during their first debate Wednesday in one of the most competitive races in the nation, The Washington Post's Meagan Flynn reports.

Luria, who faces her toughest reelection race yet after redistricting made the district more favorable to Republicans, voted for the Inflation Reduction Act this summer and touted its clean energy investments as beneficial for her constituents. She pointed to investments in offshore wind as the “hugest economic opportunity and driver for Hampton Roads to diversify the economy in our lifetimes.”

Luria added, however, that she supports an “all-of-the-above” approach to energy policy that includes both renewables and fossil fuels — a stance shared by conservative Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin III (W.Va.).

Kiggans said that while she opposes the new climate law and other “government mandates” on clean energy, she supports expanding nuclear power — one of a couple narrow places where the candidates agree. Kiggans also argued that President Biden should lower gasoline prices by increasing domestic fossil fuel production and reviving the nonoperational Keystone XL pipeline.

International climate

U.N. chief warns countries are being ‘blindsided’ by climate disasters

United Nations Secretary General António Guterres on Thursday warned that “entire populations are being blindsided” by weather disasters, citing a U.N. report that found half of all countries are not protected by early warning systems.

The report, from the U.N. Office for Disaster Risk Reduction and the World Meteorological Organization, also found that nations with poor alert systems have a disaster mortality rate eight times higher than countries with “substantial to comprehensive” coverage.

The report, which comes on the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction, follows catastrophic flooding in Pakistan that killed nearly 1,700 people — a death toll that would have been even higher without early warning systems.

“The world is failing to invest in protecting the lives and livelihoods of those on the front line,” Guterres said in a video message. “Those who have done the least to cause the climate crisis are paying the highest price.”

The U.N. boss also repeated his calls for wealthy countries to help poor nations cope with the ravages of climate change, known as “loss and damage,” which are expected to be a central theme of COP27.

Agency alert

Interior announces plans to pay for Colorado River water cuts as crisis looms

The Interior Department announced Wednesday that it will use part of the $4 billion in drought relief funds from the Inflation Reduction Act to help pay farmers, cities and Native American tribes in the Southwest for reducing their water use from the Colorado River, Ella Nilsen reports for CNN.

Interior said the program will pay applicants a fixed sum for each acre-foot of water that they leave in Lake Mead, the country’s largest reservoir, which is experiencing record low water levels amid a historic Western drought.

The move comes after the states in the Colorado River Basin blew past a June deadline, set by the Bureau of Reclamation, to reach a voluntary agreement on how to reduce water use by 2 million to 4 million acre-feet — up to a third of the river’s annual average flow.

The Interior announcement coincided with President Biden's designation of Colorado's Camp Hale as his first national monument, Maxine and our colleague Tyler Pager report.

During an event in Red Cliff, Colo., Biden showered praise on Sen. Michael F. Bennet (D-Colo.) for his advocacy for Camp Hale and climate issues.

“This guy, he made this finally happen,” Biden said of Bennet. “At least me signing this, certainly. He came to the White House and he said, ‘I told you what I need.’ And I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ You know why? I was panic he’d never leave the damn White House.”

Extreme events

Mississippi River water levels are low, at times halting shipping

Water levels along the Mississippi River are nearing their lowest point in at least a decade, making it increasingly difficult to carry exports from the nation's bread basket, The Post's Scott Dance reports.

The past few months have been exceptionally dry for much of the Mississippi basin, which makes up 41 percent of the contiguous United States. Repeatedly over the past week, water levels have become far too low for barges to float, forcing the Army Corps of Engineers to halt traffic on the river and to dredge channels.

More emergency dredging, which costs billions of dollars a year, could be needed on a broader scale if barges continue to have issues. The transportation industry says the costly intervention is necessary to maintain a flow of exports that is central to the country’s agriculture industry.

In the atmosphere

Viral

Wed, 12 Oct 2022 19:36:00 -0500 Maxine Joselow en text/html https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/10/13/states-will-play-key-role-implementing-climate-law/ DP-100 exam dump and training guide direct download
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