Did I just almost fall for a scam? I thought I was smart, but they almost got me by making me doubt myself. It sounded like a call from Ameren—my electricity provider—telling me that my power was scheduled to be cut off in less than two hours, because my last two payments had not processed. Stupidly, I believed him! Here’s the trick: He said that my “ACH” autopayment authorization with my bank had “expired,” and they can’t process payment without that. He said that “Ameren” had sent me a form to fill out—but I didn’t return it. Which was true—the part about me not returning it, because I never saw it. But he had me wondering if I had neglected something important.

So, he wanted me to fill out a new form. Like an idiot, I said, please don’t cut off my electricity, I can send you an immediate payment. No, he said, that won’t work. We can’t accept payment without the authorization form. He put me on hold, telling me that he would consult with his supervisor about a credit or debit card payment. But after 10 minutes, the call disconnected. I panicked. [I should know better.] I called the number back. He had given me his “name,” a “work order,” and his “extension.” The person who answered the phone had no idea what I was talking about and hung up on me.

How stupid am I? Of course, I should have immediately looked up Ameren’s number online. If I had, I would have known that this was a fake. But I didn’t. My heart was palpitating. I told my husband what had just happened. To my relief, he was totally calm and understanding. He said, “These things happen. It’s not your fault.” [He bought the story, too, apparently.] Then he said, “Why don’t you look at the account where the payments come out of, and see if they have been processed for the past couple of months?” Of course! Why didn’t I think of that? And, of course, there they were: perfectly legit autopay withdrawals for the past three months.

And then, by accident, I saw something on my Facebook feed that changed everything. [Don’t ask why I looked at it at that particular moment—I’m an addict, I guess.] A friend wrote a post about the exact same call, which she had fielded just hours before I got mine. She was savvier than me, and immediately knew it was a scam. Her post saved me from a trip to the ER for an EKG.

And then, belatedly, I figured out what they were really after. At first, I wondered why he didn’t just ask for my credit card number and scam me out of a few hundred dollars that way—as well as gain access to my credit card. Then I got it: They wanted me to sign an authorization that would allow them to go directly into my bank account and suck out all of my money. But you probably already knew that.

Fortunately, I didn’t give out any information, and maybe something in the way I sounded on the phone made the caller think that I wasn’t going to go for it. [He probably got a good laugh out of my protestations about having been an Ameren customer at the same address for 45 years and never having missed a payment.] I’ve read that many older people [like me] who are approached by these scammers, have the same reaction I did—panic. Many do not tell anyone what happened and how they were robbed because they’re embarrassed at being so gullible. So, although I’m feeling sheepish, foolish and more vulnerable than I thought I was, I’m telling you all of this so you won’t fall for it the way I almost did, and that if you get this kind of call, you’ll tell someone, too.

The post Today, I almost fell for a scam. I hope you’re smarter than I was. appeared first on Occasional Planet.

On March 1, 2020, New York State’s Bag Waste Reduction Law will go into effect. As of that date, all businesses collecting sales tax will be banned from handing out plastic carryout bags—with some exceptions, like produce bags for bulk purchases of fruits and vegetables and bags given out by pharmacies for prescriptions. This is a major step toward New York making good on its commitment to waste reduction. After all, New York State’s retailers currently hand out a mind-boggling 23 billion plastic carryout bags a year. As we all know, those bags don’t magically disappear. They end up in landfill where they take from ten to one hundred years to decompose. They end up littering streets and highways. Caught in the branches of trees, littering the landscape, and floating in waterways and oceans, they pose a serious hazard to wildlife.

Here’s the thing. This new paradigm calls for behavior modification and creative problem solving that calls on the adaptability of 19.54 million New Yorkers. Will this change prove to be too burdensome? Will New Yorkers pull their kids out of schools, quit their jobs, put their houses or apartments up for sale, and flee to more plastic-tolerant states? Probably not — even though they’d have the choice of resettling in one of the forty-two states that have yet to jump on the “ban” wagon.

Chances are New Yorkers are going to be just fine, just like their adaptable counterparts in California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Maine, Oregon, and Vermont. The truth is that New York’s food shoppers have been voluntarily making the switch on their own for a few years now. They’ve been showing up in increasing numbers in grocery stores with their own quirky collections of reusable bags. If the grocery store experience proves true for the rest of the retail economy, it’s safe to say that protests by consumers or producers demanding the restoration of our constitutional right to create plastic-bag waste will be few and far between.

Still, there may be challenges ahead when home stockpiles of plastic shopping bags disappear. Here are some not-so-serious ones I can think of.

• What will we use to pick up and dispose of various household menaces, like mouse carcasses, cockroaches, and stink bugs?
• How will we keep paint brushes from drying out?
• How will dog walkers tie their poop bags to fences?
• How will we keep fresh bread from tasting like onions stored in the refrigerator?
• How will we prevent clothing from getting soiled by sneakers in our gym bags or suitcases?
• How will we carry home our Chinese take-out?
• How will we clean out our cars?
• How can we be certain we’re in New York City if overflowing waste receptacles disappear?

The solution to some of these conundrums might be to use a paper bag. Under the new law, paper bags will still be available at retailers for a fee if a city or county decides to adopt a state-authorized, five-cent paper bag reduction fee. If, however, paper bags aren’t your thing, don’t worry, New Yorkers. We’ll adapt.

The post New York State bags plastic bags appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Donald Trump is making us sick—and I mean that literally. Some food experts are claiming that the recent outbreak of E.Coli contamination in Romaine lettuce may be directly linked to the Trump administration’s disdain for the Food and Drug Administration,  and particularly its health-ensuring regulations.

Specifically, the regulations in play in the Romaine lettuce issue are the ones pertaining to the safety of water used to irrigate and wash crops. Okay, I’m just going to say it: This is about poop, feces, pig shit, horse manure and other animal excreta — the sources of the E. Coli bacteria that have rendered Caesar salad an outcast in American kitchens and restaurants in 2018 and caused hundreds–maybe thousands–of people to vomit, have diarrhea even come close to death. .

It’s all happening, some food-safety experts say, because last year, Trump overturned Obama-era rules to test farm water for E. coli as well as for pesticides and other contaminants.

Let’s review.

According to EcoWatch, in 2006, a major outbreak of E. coli linked to Dole baby spinach was eventually traced back to water contaminated with cattle and wild pig feces. By that year, foodborne illness had become a full-blown epidemic, affecting 1 in 6 Americans. In response to that and many other outbreaks connected to foods such as peanuts, fruit and vegetables, Congress passed the landmark 2011 Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). The law includes requirements that the FDA develop rules governing produce safety, including the water quality used to grow, harvest and pack produce.

But the FDA dragged its feet in implementing the rules. After numerous lawsuits from food-safety groups, the FDA decided to allow growers to phase in water quality and testing requirements between 2018 and 2022.

That sounded like progress. But then, Trump came along—Trump and his anti-regulatory business cronies and Big Agriculture political donors. That’s when things started going south for food safety, turning us backward, toward the good old golden, anything-goes days of the unregulated food industry of 100+ years ago.

Ecowatch reports that, “in March 2017, Trump announced billions in dollars of cuts to USDA and FDA, undermining their ability to keep our food safe. In November 2017, the Trump administration proposed a delay in enforcement of urgently needed rules aimed at keeping produce free from fecal contamination. Under the Trump administration’s delay, growers would not have to test water for E. coli contamination until between 2022 and 2014—11 to 13 years after FSMA’s passage.”

The Center for Food Safety says that, based on FDA estimates, delaying enforcement of the rule could lead to more than 730,000 additional cases of foodborne illness and countless deaths.

FDA’s own economic analysis estimates that those illnesses and deaths would cost consumers between $96 million and $822 million more than the industry would save from a delay in enforcing the rule. The groups point to at least seven deadly outbreaks of foodborne illness linked to produce, including cantaloupes, apples, cucumbers, and papayas, since the passage of FSMA in 2011. Some of those outbreaks might have been prevented if the water safety rule had been in effect.

At the Center for Science in the Public Interest, deputy director for legislative affairs Sarah Sorcher said:

“Americans deserve to know that their produce wasn’t grown or rinsed in water contaminated with animal feces. Testing water that is used to grow and harvest produce for E. coli will save both lives and money. Consumers should be outraged that the Trump administration intends to defy Congress by delaying enforcement of these safeguards for many years more.”

The post Trump delays farm-water testing. Americans get E. Coli appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Too lazy to compost? Yeah, me too. But with an emerging service, known as curbside food-waste pickup, people like us can feel less guilty and do some good, without doing much extra work.

It’s not available everywhere—yet—but some startup experiments and ongoing, city-funded programs may be demonstrating both the planet-friendly value of food-waste pickup and its workability.

Last week, in a suburban subdivision not very far away from mine, a waste hauler began offering free, curbside food-waste pickup as a pilot program. Homeowners who sign up receive a bright yellow bin in which to place food and yard waste. Republic Services will pick up the waste once a week and take it Total Organics Recycling, which also makes compost out of waste from restaurants, hospitals and local colleges.

Our area is a bit late to the composting party. People more enlightened than me have been composting yard and food waste for years, to fertilize their vegetable gardens, upgrade their flower gardens, or to nourish their lawns. But they are not in the majority: According recent studies, most household food waste goes from the kitchen to the garbage can and then to the landfill. Americans throw away an estimated 25% of the food we buy. And those compostable organics represent over 37% of residential waste, which is now the single largest component of what is thrown away in many landfills.

So what? It’s just garbage, right?

Actually, it’s much more. According to a recent report,

…when compostable materials break down in the landfill, they become powerful contributors to greenhouse gas emissions. They decompose without oxygen, in a landfill, producing methane, which is a major contributor to global warming.

In fact, landfills account for 34 percent of all methane emissions in the U.S. In addition to the production of methane, landfill contaminates soil, ground water, and pollutes debris in surrounding areas.

It’s a start

So, composting makes sense. But until recently, it was an individual household preference, quite prevalent in rural areas, but not very popular in cities. Starting around 2005, some areas began offering centralized food-waste disposal centers, where residents could drop off their compostable stuff. [New York City has been operating drop-off sites at more than 50 farmers markets for a number of years. More recently, drop-off locations were opened at subway stations, public libraries and other heavily trafficked areas.]

The drop-off centers have generally been successful in terms of local enthusiasm, but often on a scale too small to make a meaningful difference That’s when some counties and solid-waste districts starting investigating government-funded food-waste pickups—mostly motivated by a need to divert material from the shrinking space available for landfills, and to save money on trash collection—but also as an ecologically responsible service that could have long-term benefits.

Where are we now?

Government-supported food-waste collection is on the rise—although it’s far from standard operating procedure in most areas. In 2017, one nationwide study found curbside programs in 20 states, offering 5.1 million households access to curbside collection, a growth of 2.4 million since the previous study in 2014.

Drilling down a bit, the study reveals the variety of ways in which cities, counties and trash-collection districts conduct their food-waste pickup programs:

• Some offer their programs as “standard,” meaning organics collection is offered alongside trash and recycling, with no extra steps needed for residents to participate.
• “Opt-in” programs, require residents to sign up to receive food waste collection service.
• Mandatory programs, require all residents to participate. There are eight mandatory programs, half of which are in California.

And, exactly what qualifies, in these programs, as compostable? The 2017 study found that:

• All programs take fruit and vegetable scraps
• Over 90 percent accept meat, fish and dairy
• The majority take paper bags and uncoated, food-soiled paper [such as pizza boxes].
• Less than half accept compostable plastic products, such as compostable plastic bags, compostable plastic-coated paper products, and compostable plastic packaging and foodservice items
• Less than 25% of programs accept molded fiber containers
• About 7 percent take conventional plastic-coated paper

How to make it work

Food-waste pickup sounds logical and responsible, but is it doable? A 2017 study by M.I.T. looked at factors that push governments toward trying it out. The main incentive for starting a program, said the researchers, is being told that you have to do it. You need “an ambitious waste-diversion mandate at the state or county level.” [Example: Connecticut has set a statewide goal of 60 percent waste diversion by 2024, which has motivated West Hartford to initiate a pilot program of food-waste pickup.]

Obviously, it also helps—a lot—to have “a nearby processing facility that can handle the area’s food waste…and a pre-existing infrastructure for collecting and processing yard waste.”

Once a city or county has decided to give curbside pickup a try, getting it off the ground requires getting your trash hauler to buy in. That’s easier if your city or county already provides trash hauling or contracts with a single hauler, say the M.I.T. researchers. It’s also important to appeal to a trash hauler’s bottom line: They want efficiency—”maximum tonnage collected with minimum distance traveled.” So municipalities need to make it work for the trash hauler even before they can make it work for their residents and their own budgetary needs.

What makes people participate or drop out? In a study of their pilot program, Milwaukee’s Department of Public Works reported:

• Of the individuals not interested in participating, 67% of respondents said that the cost was too high, 27% already compost, 15% do not think they have enough material to justify participating, 14% do not have space for a third cart, 11% are not eligible due to the current geographic boundaries, and 2% had other reasons.
• No one identified that there was not enough of an environmental benefit to the program, which was a survey option.
•  Reducing costs to $5 per month would likely increase participation 38%.

As to getting households to participate, the best way is — here we go again — to make composting mandatory, say the M.I.T. researchers. That probably won’t happen in the beginning, as municipalities start with opt-in pilot programs. But, in the long run, it’s going to have to be compulsory if it’s going to work, and, unfortunately, mandates have political implications.

Who’s in?

San Francisco, Portland, Vancouver and New York have composting mandates. West Hartford CT, Milwaukee WI and many other areas have initiated pilot programs. Other cities, while not yet mandating food-waste composting, have established zero-waste goals for themselves. These cities—including Austin, Minneapolis, Oakland, Washington DC, Dallas, Takoma Park MD, Malibu CA, and San Diego—would seem to be moving, inevitably, toward area-wide, government-funded food-waste composting programs.

But wait, there’s more

But as high-minded—and ultimately necessary—as these goals and efforts are, there’s still more to be done. We can’t just rely on governments to get this job done. It’s clear that individual behaviors have to change as well.

The M.I.T. study asserts that success will also depend on motivating “waste generators”—meaning people, corporations and institutions—to participate in food-waste composting at high levels and to separate organic materials properly to minimize contamination.

At an even higher level, we need to figure out how to motivate ourselves to avoid creating wasted food in the first place. We need to to shop smarter, plan our food use more efficiently, and—bottom line — eat  more of the food we buy.

The post Curbside composting: Convenient, eco-friendly, but will it work? appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Gooey butter cake, the Gateway Arch, the Cardinals, and telling jokes on Halloween. There is no doubt that all of these things remind you of the city of St. Louis, Missouri. But what if, when you thought about St. Louis, you pictured the MetroLink or a MetroBus similar to how we think of the Subway in NYC or the El in Chicago? Well, if St. Louis ever wants public transportation to be as prominent as it is in these two cities, we’ve got a lot of work to do.

Currently our Metro system spans a total of 46 miles throughout St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and St. Clair County (Illinois). Within the MetroLink specifically, ridership has declined 11% since June of 2017. Some of the possible reasons for the decline in ridership include the negative security perceptions of the community, the relocation of the Rams lessening traffic downtown, lower gas prices, and the increase in rideshare services such as Uber and Lyft. So far, Lyft has created $15 million in revenue for local drivers in their 16 months of service in STL. Recently, the company struck a deal with Chaifetz Arena at St. Louis University to create a designated area for Lyft drivers to pick up customers. Just this past August, Lyft provided around 5,000 rides for people during the PGA tour in St. Louis. Rideshare programs like this are generally more appealing to consumers mainly because of the ease at which one can summon a ride through a simple app on their cell phone.

In St. Louis, feeling safe riding a train to and from work is important if we ever want to have a successful public transit system within this city. It’s a given fact that when people feel unsafe using a specific form of transportation, they are more likely to find other methods of transport to get to and from places. According to the Belleville News Democrat (BND), in 2017 there were “1.4 violent crimes, such as homicide or robbery, per 100,000 boardings” on the MetroLink. By comparison, “8.5 people per 100,000 Illinois residents died in a motor vehicle crash” that same year. So, for all the people who believe that everyone driving their own car to and from work would be safer, that’s not necessarily true.

Currently, our MetroLink stations have no turnstiles on their platforms, which makes it easier for people to sneak onto the trains. Every now and then, there are fare inspectors who will randomly ask riders to show their time stamped ticket as proof that they paid for the ride, but this becomes more of a challenge when trains get super crowded. An additional safety concern is that there are currently no connecting train cars for police or passengers to move between while the train is moving. This means that it is harder for passengers to escape possible danger that arises as the train is in motion.

While many of these concerns can be solved through the reconstruction of trains and stations, there are still safety concerns regarding policing policies throughout the system. For instance, the Metro security guards don’t share a common radio frequency with the local police departments, nor is there a common radio system shared among the three different security jurisdictions of St. Louis City, St. Louis County, and St. Clair County. If this did exist, it would make it easier to deploy officers when and where it’s necessary if a train is in motion. Other possible improvements to security include adding turnstiles, fences, or some sort of barrier, putting a guard on each platform, or having just a single access point to platforms instead of multiple entry points.

As a response to this growing uncertainty that St. Louisans have towards the MetroLink, St. Louis County officials have decided to delay the study of further expansion of the MetroLink until they have completed an evaluation of security practices used within the system. Keep in mind that the new Cortex station has been the only new station to open in the past 10 years of the MetroLink system. Going back to the security assessment, it will be carried out by an engineering company named WSP USA. This investigation of the 38 MetroLink stations in MO/IL will include looking at the lack of coordination between local municipalities across the system and reviewing the general policies of each police force. The study is expected to be completed by January 2019.

On the other side of the Mississippi in St. Clair County, they have been actively implementing new measures to increase safety on their trains. An example being that they have a deputy on every train from 5:00PM – 1:00AM in locations where higher crime has been reported. As a result of this, there has been a 7% decrease in crime on the MetroLink in this county. Both STL City and STL County need to take note and recognize that if they want to see more people taking transit, then they better step up their game and patrol more officers.

Throughout all the chaos of trying to increase public transit use, there is one group, Citizens for Modern Transit (CMT), that has been somewhat successful. The purpose of this group is to “…lead efforts for an integrated, affordable, and convenient public transportation system with light rail expansion as the critical component that will drive economic growth to improve quality of life in the St. Louis region. One of their more popular programs is called “Try and Ride” which helps first time riders become more familiar with the Metro system. So far, they have helped over 5,800 people through providing services such as personalized route information, free fare for an entire month, and registration in the Guaranteed Ride Program. This programs allows travelers to use ride-hailing services such as Lyft or Uber in case of sickness, unscheduled overtime at work, other personal emergencies, etc. CMT will provide up to $60 per ride in these instances.

Of course will always be pros and cons to public transportation, but for a city currently in the midst of a battle over public transit, privatizing our local airport may not be the best idea. Currently, there is an active push to privatize St. Louis Lambert International Airport, which falls within St. Louis City jurisdiction. The headliner for this project is Rex Sinquefield, a well-known financial contributor to political campaigns in Missouri. His nonprofit organization, Grow Missouri, helped pay for STL’s approved application sent to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). This whole idea of privatizing the airport was introduced in early 2017 when Mayor Slay was still in office, and has now been passed onto Mayor Krewson by default. St. Louis City has selected members for the FLY314 Coalition of Advisors (supported by Grow MO aka Rex) whose job is to work closely with the Board of Estimate and Apportionment to look at ideas from interested investment partners. Supposedly, their job is to also inform the community and airport operations throughout this process, but unfortunately, it is being done under the radar, hidden from public view. Airport privatization needs to be approved by the FAA, Board of Aldermen, Board of Estimate and Apportionment, and a majority of the airlines at Lambert Airport in order to pass.

However, if St. Louis ever hopes to see the day where public transit is a main method of transportation, we have to use a more efficient process than the one used in the whole Loop trolley ordeal, which by the way, is still not in full service! According to the 2018 State of the St. Louis Workforce Report conducted by St. Louis Community College, one of the top five potential barriers to expanding employment is lack of transportation. Thus, if we are able to make using our public transportation system safer, easier, and generally more enjoyable, it’ll benefit our workforce, eventually improving St. Louis as a whole.

Links:
https://custapp.marketvolt.com/cv.aspx?cm=1198762691&x=51036870&cust=427641269

That Guy | Metro St. Louis

https://www.bnd.com/news/local/article210317754.html
https://www.stltoday.com/news/traffic/along-for-the-ride/st-louis-county-delays-study-of-future-metrolink-expansion/article_0637637f-f55f-50b8-b133-b2c104ff6239.html
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/metrolink-study-to-focus-on-justifying-project-showing-strong-local/article_013f1546-9cad-57fb-8fa1-c051f7363e4f.html
https://www.stltoday.com/news/traffic/along-for-the-ride/efforts-to-improve-security-on-metrolink-move-forward-but-slowly/article_1799c5c7-eacf-5ffa-939d-be41cabd6a0c.html
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/try-try-again-st-louis-county-seeks-firm-to-study/article_cffe1ad1-ad2c-5a2f-8b1d-68cd31c3e09d.html

CMT’s Try & Ride Program

System Maps

https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/tough-to-gauge-risk-to-metrolink-riders/article_c3e4a153-4446-50a0-b227-f2a83b191aa5.html
https://www.bizjournals.com/stlouis/news/2018/08/14/expand-metrolink-ridership-falls-as-subsidies-grow.html
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/latest-loop-trolley-opening-guesstimate-mid-autumn-at-the-latest/article_bb26b910-778d-5db3-9d83-7db2674d0398.html#tracking-source=home-top-story-1
https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/top-city-officials-vote-to-begin-exploration-of-privatizing-lambert/article_14e304e2-9f86-5b11-bdd1-dfc67fc30735.html
https://www.masstransitmag.com/press_release/12429091/metro-transit-invites-region-to-celebrate-stl-car-free-day-on-september-21

The post St. Louis public transportation needs to get on track appeared first on Occasional Planet.

Mick Mulvaney, Donald Trump’s appointee to head up [translation:destroy] the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau comes in for devastating criticism in a letter of resignation submitted by Seth Frotman, a seven-year veteran of the Bureau who served as its Student Loan Ombudsman.

In his letter, as published by NPR, Frotman describes the ways in which Mulvaney has undermined and essentially reversed the original mission of the CFPB in general, and the office of the student loan ombudsman in particular.

“…After 10 months under your leadership, it has become clear that consumers no longer have a strong, independent Consumer Bureau on their side,” writes Frotman…” Unfortunately, under your leadership, the Bureau has abandoned the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting. Instead, you have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.”

From his letter, you can tell that Frotman liked his job and was passionate about helping student-loan borrowers get fair treatment from lenders. When Mulvaney took over as interim director, he quickly began turning the CFPB on its head, Frotman implies. Frotman charges Mulvaney with undermining the bureau’s mission, undercutting enforcement, and switching the focus from protecting consumers to “going above and beyond” to protect lenders’ interests.

Frotman cites several instances that demonstrate Mulvaney’s intent to wreck the CFPB from within—something that Republicans have wanted to do since Day 1 of the bureau conceived and promoted by Senator Elizabeth Warren [D-MA].

“For example” writes Frotman, “Late last year [2017], when new evidence came to light showing that the nation’s largest banks were ripping off students on campuses across the country by saddling them with legally dubious account fees, Bureau leadership suppressed the publication of a report prepared by Bureau staff. When pressed by Congress about this, you chose to leave students vulnerable to predatory practices and deny any responsibility to bring this information to light.”

Frotman also calls some actions by the bureau, under Mulvaney’s leadership, as “unprecedented,” “illegal,” and designed to “shield the biggest financial institutions from accountability.”

“The current leadership of the Bureau has made its priorities clear—it will protect the misguided goals of the Trump Administration to the detriment of student loan borrowers,” writes Frotman. “…American families need an independent Consumer Bureau to look out for them when lenders push products they know cannot be repaid, when banks and debt collectors conspire to abuse the courts and force families out of their homes, and when student loan companies are allowed to drive millions of Americans to financial ruin with impunity.”

Frotman cannot be accused of making this stuff up. For a bit of context, it should be noted that when Mulvaney was in Congress, he sponsored legislation to abolish the CFPB. In June 2018, after being appointed acting director of the bureau by Trump, Mulvaney fired the agency’s consumer advisory council, which according to NPR,” is designed to help consumer groups work with the CFPB to identify problems facing Americans who are treated unfairly by financial firms.”

Frotman’s decision to resign with a bang echoes that of an ever-growing cadre of career government employees—dedicated to and passionate about the good things that good government can do—who have quit the Trump Administration on principle. His experience with Mulvaney also parallels what well-intentioned federal employees have encountered in other Trump-run agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency.

You have to wonder how many others, perhaps not as articulate as Frotman, in agencies whose missions are similarly threatened under Trump, are suffering in silence, keeping their heads down, trying to continue the mission they thought they were supporting, hoping that this is just an Orwellian nightmare from which America will wake up before it’s too late.

Here’s the full text of Frotman’s resignation letter, as published by NPR.

August 27, 2018

…

Acting Director Mulvaney:

It is with great regret that I tender my resignation as the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s Student Loan Ombudsman. It has been the honor of a lifetime to spend the past seven years working to protect American consumers; first under Holly Petraeus as the Bureau defended America’s military families from predatory lenders, for-profit colleges, and other unscrupulous businesses; and most recently leading the Bureau’s work on behalf of the 44 million Americans struggling with student loan debt. However, after 10 months under your leadership, it has become clear that consumers no longer have a strong, independent Consumer Bureau on their side.

Each year, tens of millions of student loan borrowers struggle to stay afloat. For many, the CFPB has served as a lifeline—cutting through red tape, demanding systematic reforms when borrowers are harmed, and serving as the primary financial regulator tasked with holding student loan companies accountable when they break the law.

The hard work and commitment of the immensely talented Bureau staff has had a tremendous impact on students and families. Together, we returned more than $750 million to harmed student loan borrowers in communities across the country and halted predatory practices that targeted millions of people in pursuit of the American Dream.

The challenges of student debt affect borrowers young and old, urban and rural, in professions ranging from infantrymen to clergymen.  Tackling these challenges should know no ideology or political persuasion. I had hoped to continue this critical work in partnership with you and your staff by using our authority under law to stand up for student loand borrowers trapped in a broken system. Unfortunately, under your leadership, the Bureau has abandoned the very consumers it is tasked by Congress with protecting. Instead, you have used the Bureau to serve the wishes of the most powerful financial companies in America.

As the Bureau official charged by Congress with overseeing the student loan market, I have seen how the current actions being taken by Bureau leadership are hurting families. In recent months, the Bureau has made sweeping changes, including:

Undercutting enforcement of the law. It is clear that the current leadership of the Bureau has abandoned its duty to fairly and robustly enforce the law. The Bureau’s new political leadership has repeatedly undercut and undermined career CFPB staff working to secure relief for consumers. These actions will affect millions of student loan borrowers, including those harmed by the company that dominates this market. In addition, when the Education Department unilaterally shut the door to routine CFPB oversight of the largest student loan companies, the Bureau’s current leadership folded to political pressure. By undermining the Bureau’s own authority to oversee the student loan market, the Bureau has failed borrowers who depend on independent oversight to halt bad practices and bring accountability to the student loan industry.

Undermining the Bureau’s independence. The current leadership of the Bureau has make its priorities clear—it will protect the misguided goals of the Trump Administration to the detriment of student loan borrowers. For nearly seven years, I was proud to be part of an agency that served no party and no administration; the Consumer Bureau focused solely on doing what was right for American consumers. Unfortunately, that is no longer the case. Recently, senior leadership at the Bureau blocked efforts to call attention to the ways in which the actions of this administration will hurt families ripped off by predatory for-profit schools. Similarly, senior leadership also blocked attempts to alert the Department of Education to the far-reaching harm borrowers will face due to the Department’s unprecedented and illegal attempts to preempt state consumer laws and shield student loan companies from accountability for widespread abuses. At every turn, your political appointees have silenced warnings by those of us tasked with standing up for servicemembers and students.

Shielding bad actors from scrutiny. The current leadership of the Bureau has turned its back on young people and their financial futures. Where we once found efficient and innovative ways to collaborate across government to protect consumers, the Bureau is now content doing the bare minimum for them while simultaneously going above and beyond to protect the interests of the biggest financial companies in America. For example, late last year, when new evidence came to light showing that the nation’s largest banks were reipping off students on campuses across the country by saddling them with legally dubious account fees. Bureau leadership suppressed the publication of a report prepared by Bureau staff. When pressed by Congress about this, you chose to leave students vulnerable to predatory practices and deny any responsibility to bring this information to light.

American families need an independent Consumer Bureau to look out for them when lenders push products they know cannot be repaid, when banks and debt collectors conspire to abuse the courts and force families out of their homes, and when student loan companies are allowed to drive millions of Americans to financial ruin with impunity.

In my time at the Bureau I have traveled across the country, meeting with consumers in over three dozen states, and with military families from over 100 military units. I have met with dozens of state law enforcement officials and, more importantly, I have heard directly from tens of thousands of individual student loan borrowers.

A common thread ties these experiences together—the American Dream under siege, told through the hear wrenching stories of individuals caught in a system rigged to favor the most powerful financial interests. For seven years, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau fought to ensure these families received a fair shake as they strived for the American Dream.

For these reasons, I resign effective September 1, 2018. Although I will no longer be Student Loan Ombudsman, I remain committed to fighting on behalf of borrowers who are trapped in a broken student loan system.

 

Sincerely,

Seth Frotman

Assistant Director & Student Loan Ombudsman

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

The post Student Loan Watchdog Quits Trump Administration with scorching resignation letter appeared first on Occasional Planet.

The Constitution is important. Full stop. It does many things, chief among them being defining and protecting the rights of people in the United States. So, what happens when America elects an executive that doesn’t fairly apply the constitution because he either doesn’t understand it or doesn’t respect it (the jury’s still out on which is worse)? The American Civil Liberties Union starts getting busy.

The inauguration of Donald Trump in 2016 was a watershed moment for civil liberties in the United States. Since the Warren Court, our constitution has been interpreted in a way that has made speech more free and rights more universal. Tinker v. Des Moines paved the way for student speech, Brandenburg v. Ohio protected inflammatory speech that doesn’t incite violence, Roe v. Wade extended a woman’s right to privacy to reproductive healthcare. Both Republican and Democratic presidents have encountered rulings they’ve disagreed with, but for the most part with some notable exceptions (Bush activities after the Patriot Act) they’ve accepted the norms that make our democracy work. Whenever a President did try to skirt the constitution and curb our civil liberties they at least made noises about “national security”. But there has perhaps never been a President so willing to abandon dog-whistle rhetoric and explicitly state his intentions to undermine our constitution.

“I would bring back waterboarding, and I’d bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding”

“Nobody wants to say this, and nobody wants to shut down religious institutions or anything, but you know, you understand it. A lot of people understand it. We’re going to have no choice.”

“We’re going to open up those libel laws, so when The New York Times writes a hit piece which is a total disgrace … we can sue them and win money”

“I’m calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the U.S.”

“When somebody comes in, we must immediately, with no judges or court cases, bring them back from where they came.”

“We’re rounding them up in a very human way, a very nice way.”

“Regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey.”

President Trump’s public statements rival those of Richard Nixon who famously declared “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.” But the institutions of 2018 seem to lack the intestinal fortitude of the institutions of 1974. Even with the intervention of a few state attorneys general and the 9th circuit court of appeals, we appear to be witnessing a rapid erosion of constitutional norms that has been exacerbated by recently emboldened state governments. That’s why there’s a necessity for non-profits that exist independent from government, enter the ACLU.

We asked the Executive Directive of the ACLU of Missouri, Jeffrey Mittman, how he views the role of his organization and he said, “Our job is to be a check on the government, we are the only organization whose absolute responsibility is to protect every American, every Missourian against government overreach, against violation of constitutional civil rights.” When Mittman says every American, he really does mean every American and it has not been without controversy.

Last year, the ACLU filed a lawsuit against the city of Cape Girardeau on behalf of the Ku Klux Klan because the city considered it a crime for that group to leave handbills on windshields. For many people, it’s head scratching that the same group that has been integral in the expansion of minority rights should also defend a hate group that is diametrically opposed to those rights. Mittman told us “We will defend any right as strongly as any other, so we have to defend free speech rights, but we also have to defend the right to racial equality to ends of restrictions on racial … restrictions on voting, to school the prison work, the unfair treatment of African American students…When hate crimes laws came up that said…if you say something bad, or think something bad, or write something bad, we will punish that. The ACLU said, “Wait, nope.” We can’t punish speech, we can’t punish thought. Our friends in the LGBT community, and the African American, and minority racial communities were not happy, but understood. What we said is if you commit a crime, and in the commission of that crime you say you are doing it because of that person’s race, or religion, or sexual orientation, we can as a community say, because of that history of discrimination there will be an extra penalty because of that. But to simply punish thought, or speech, or writings is not permissible.”

The ACLU is perhaps the most consistent advocacy organization in America, and it’s operated under its mission statement “to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to every person in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.” essentially without fail for nearly 100 years. It’s put them at odds with a number of Presidential administrations, but maybe none more than the Trump administration whose policy directives continue to challenge the limits of the constitution. Mittman detailed to us the work that’s been done on behalf of DACA students, Muslims that have been targeted due to the travel ban, and transgender soldiers whose ability to serve is in jeopardy to name a few. But listening to Mittman, who has been in Missouri since 2014, it’s clear that maybe the nature of his work hasn’t changed but rather the public has become more aware of problems that have existed longer than we’d like to admit.

Mittman went on at some length about racial disparities in this state, especially as they relate to education and law enforcement. There’s a “school to prison pipeline” which is essentially the disproportionate way minority students eventually become incarcerated adults that is likely related to school disciplinary policies. Mittman talked about a specific case that’s emblematic of similar experiences around the country. “In 2015 that Missouri had the highest differential between rates of discipline of white students and black students in elementary school. We represented a young, seven-year-old boy who was handcuffed. Less than four feet tall, weighed less than 50 pounds, was crying his classroom, was handcuffed, was taken to the principal’s office and left in handcuffs in the principal’s office. So, we’re working on the issue of police and schools.”

The ACLU is in the middle of a multi-year program to address this, and Mittman says the struggle is “How do we say that under third grade you should never have an out of school suspension?” he continued, “It’s just not necessary, these are young people, these are students, these are children. These are not criminals. These are not people who need to be dealt with by police officers.” Currently the ACLU is starting with five school districts in a partnership to help them look at their policies and “help them educate themselves, help them look at implicit bias training for schools, for teachers. Whatever it takes to lower those differentials.”

Now back to the President, who not only dominates media conversation but a significant portion of the National ACLU’s casework. We asked Mittman, who knows quite a bit about constitutional law, if the President can pardon himself. It seems more relevant now as the Mueller probe has progressed and many of his associates have been indicted including his former campaign manager and national security advisor. Mittman had an interesting answer “My own fundamental belief, and I think it’s fairly what ACLU would say, is going back to our earlier question, we are a system of laws not men. So, the fundamental principal will be the Constitution applies to all of us. The president is not above the law. So, if we agree on that starting point, I would hope and trust that any opinion, whether a trial court, whether the Supreme Court, would strongly ascribe to that idea that the president is not above the law.”

The ACLU is doing something that every citizen should be doing, and that’s ensuring the continued existence of liberal democracy. Whatever freedoms we have and rights we acknowledge only exist because they were fought for. The ACLU has done much of the heavy lifting in shaping how we view free speech, and it’s been a net positive for our country. Mittman said of his organization, “What people don’t know is before the 1920s, nobody would’ve said first amendment. There was a first amendment to the constitution, but it hadn’t been enforced. ACLU started around the time of World War I. Wilson was having people jailed for opposing the war. ACLU said wait a second, we have free speech right. We went to court, and now we’ve built a body of law. We’re that follow-through on what the federalists said. We’re the follow-through on the constitution…the challenges in Missouri are going to be different than the challenges of New Hampshire … [but] we know what goes on here, we are part of what goes on here, and we have the expertise in national to make it happen. They listen to us, we listen to them.”

The constitution is not a partisan issue, it’s literally above politics. It’s patriotic to support the constitution, it’s sycophantic to make excuses for its degradation. As Americans, now is the time to come together and make it known that we believe that government has to work for the people and do that work within the bounds of the people’s document.

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Republican Senators Jeff Flake, Bob Corker and John McCain have been receiving many kudos for speaking out against Donald Trump’s worst behaviors, lack of character, and unfitness for the presidency. But do not be fooled: These Senators are not moral heroes.

Our mothers, fathers and other wise advisers have long told us to pay more attention to what people do than to what they say. That adage has never been more apt than it is today, as people laud Flake for speaking out on the Senate floor, Corker for blasting Trump in the halls of the Capitol, and McCain for criticizing Trumpian behavior [without mentioning his name] in media interviews. Their words have been characterized as courageous—at a time when “courage” is defined as saying what is painfully obvious to even the most casual observer. And you can call that courage, if you like, because at least they are speaking out, when others won’t. But what are their actions?

Just hours after speaking on the Senate floor, saying that he would no longer be “complicit” with the Trump agenda, Senator Flake betrayed his own promise by voting for a bill that guts consumer protections. The result is that Flake enabled Trump to get what he really wants—a legislative “win” that he can brag about. How is that not being complicit, Senator Flake?

The same goes for Corker and McCain. Both of them joined all of the rest of the Senate Republicans voting for the bill.

Sure, Flake’s speech yesterday denounced “Trumpism.” But that term has been given far too much credence. Calling something an “ism” usually means that there is a thought-through philosophy behind it. That is certainly not the case with Trump. “Trumpsim” isn’t a philosophy: It’s a random series of irrational, spur-of-the-moment, reactive utterances, tweets and tantrums whose only coherent theme is defiance, anger, bragging and lying to shore up his fragile ego, winning at any cost, and destruction of anything relating to Obama.

So, if you’re fed up with these kinds of behaviors, Senators Corker and McCain, why are you voting for bills that reward them?

More specifically, in the case of the CFPB bill you just voted for, Trump probably knows exactly zero about what was in it. The pesky details and the inner workings of the CFPB are likely of no interest to Trump. What he hates about CFPB is not its policies, but its provenance: It’s an Obama-era programm which, by some definition in Trump’s angry, egotistical brain, must be erased. Also, Trump is desperately lusting after a legislative win. So, by voting to gut provisions of CFPB, Senators Flake, Corker and McCain, you are doing Trump’s bidding. How is that courageous, Senators?

If you really oppose what Trump has been doing to the presidency, democracy, and foreign policy, speaking out is nice. But your power, Senators, is not just in your voice, it’s in your vote. Keep talking, but show us that you mean what you say by acting — in the interest of your country, not just your party — on your much-ballyhooed convictions.

The post Flake, Corker, McCain: Not the moral heroes they’re cracked up to be appeared first on Occasional Planet.

And now, a word about the brown marmorated stink bug. If you haven’t heard of it, count yourself lucky. This autumn the stink bug, or Halyomorpha halys, has rocketed to the top of the most-hated invasive list. The stink bug is an insect that makes the skin of even the most bug tolerant crawl. Here in the Northeast, this fall’s quasi-biblical invasion is in full swing. And we’re not alone. This noxious Asian native has migrated across the continent, and farmers, homeowners, and agricultural researchers are desperately searching for effective measures to eliminate this wily enemy.

Who and what is this prehistoric-appearing nemesis that spreads fear and loathing wherever it’s found? Out in the fields, stink bugs are causing millions of dollars of damage to a variety of crops. In homes, the stink bug clings to sun-drenched exterior walls and speckles the insides and outsides of window screens. Seeking shelter to hibernate for winter, the bug finds its way indoors through the tiniest of cracks. It clings to window shades. It hides in air-conditioning filters. It snuggles down in the folds of pillowcases, window blinds, and blankets. It drops from the ceiling onto unsuspecting sleepers, awakening them to paroxysms of fight-or-flight. Capture or squash them at the risk of having their stomach-churning coriander-like odor pervading fingers or rooms for days. And their sound in flight—a spine-chilling, buzz-saw sound that far outstrips what one might expect for their one-half-inch-size—is the stuff of insectophobes’ worst nightmares.

Connecting the dots

Is there a lesson in the destructive tale of the stink bug? Of course there is, and it’s important that we connect the dots and acknowledge the larger picture. Without much irony, you might declare that “stink bugs are us.”  That’s because the bug’s presence here in the U.S. is just one of many examples of the negative environmental impacts of a global market fed by our voracious appetite for low-cost consumer goods. In other words, the stink bug established a beachhead in our homes and on our farms as a direct result of our preference for low-cost t-shirts, pants, shoes, and small appliances produced in factories located in low-wage markets far from these shores.

So how did the stink bug, a native of China and Japan, establish a comfortable niche here on the American continent? Researchers believe that the bugs made their first inroads in Pennsylvania, where the first sightings occurred in Allentown in 1998. Speculation is that the stink bug stowed away in wooden shipping crates transporting either manufactured or agricultural goods from Asia. Over the next two decades, their territory spread to twenty-eight states. Today the number of states in which they’ve found a cozy haven stands at forty-one.

This is not a joke

Regardless of its humorous-sounding name, the stink bug is no joke. For home owners, the stink bug is a seasonal nuisance, but for farmers the impact is far more serious.

Just how dire is the stink-bug threat to agricultural production? Unfortunately, the average stink bug isn’t a fussy eater, feeding on both fruit and vegetable crops. The stink bug consumes peaches, apples, cherries, grapes, pears, tomatoes, peppers, corn, soybeans, and green beans, and more.

To understand the stink bugs’ spreading economic impact, consider the travails of two agricultural sectors: the apple and wine industries. In 2010, apple growers in the mid-Atlantic states reported losing 18% of their crop at a cost of $37 million due to stink-bug damage.  Think about the experience of wine producers in the Northwest. Stink bugs feed on the grapevines and then hitch a ride on the harvested grapes as they make their way through the wine-making process. During the process, the stink bug’s musty stink, or in more scientific terms, the stress compound identified as (E)-2-decenal, fouls the aroma of the fermented grapes. And unless wine drinkers’ olfactory expectations change dramatically, the dire economic consequences to the wine industry are obvious.

The stink bug problem is, in fact, so dire that the USDA’s Specialty Crop Research Initiative now has fifty researchers rushing to look into ways to combat this stinky destructor. Right now those researchers believe that weaponizing another Asian invasive pest, the tiny, parasitoid Trissolcus japonicus—or, as they are more affectionately known, the samurai wasp—will help control and decrease the population of stink bugs. How does the samurai wasp accomplish biologically what other measures do not? In one of the cruelties of nature, the samurai wasp lays its eggs inside the eggs of the brown marmorated stink bug, thereby destroying the stink bug’s brood.

Doing even a cursory search online about stick bugs reveals that researchers and agricultural agencies are so alarmed about the stink bug problem that the bug has the distinction of having has its own website dedicated to educating the public and reporting on advancements in management strategies. (www.stopbmsb) The stink bug also has its own online early-detection and distribution mapping system, hosted by the Center for Invasive Species and Ecosystem Health, that encourages the public to report stink bug sitings.

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