‘Terrible public policy’: Why the debt deal infuriates climate activists

[Daily Kos Morning Roundup]( A morning roundup of worthy pundit and news reads, brought to you by Daily Kos. [Click here to read the full web version.]( - [‘Terrible public policy’: Why the debt deal infuriates climate activists]( ‘Terrible public policy’: Why the debt deal infuriates climate activists, Timothy Puko, The Washington Post President Biden and House Republicans have agreed to expedite permitting for the Mountain Valley Pipeline, a project that is key to the West Virginia delegation as the president and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) seek to woo lawmakers across the capital. Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.). has previously demanded White House support for the project in exchange for his vote, and other Republicans, including West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, praised the pipeline provisions included in the legislation. It is another White House concession to Manchin, who has long championed the 303-mile pipeline, which would carry West Virginia shale gas to the East Coast but has been tripped up by dozens of environmental violations and a slew of court fights. Environmentalists have fought the project since its inception, and the new provisions aims to block them from challenging almost all government approvals for the line to cut across federal forests and dozens of waterways in Appalachia’s hilly, wet terrain. - [Anti-vaxxer RFK Jr. is suing Daily Kos for protecting our community. The legal fees are piling up, you can donate $3 here to help us fight back?]( - [Ugandan president signs anti-LGBTQ+ law with death penalty for same-sex acts]( Ugandan president signs anti-LGBTQ+ law with death penalty for same-sex acts, Samuel Okiror, The Guardian Uganda’s president, Yoweri Museveni, has signed into law the world’s harshest anti-LGBTQ+ bill, which allows the death penalty for homosexual acts. The move immediately drew condemnation from many Ugandans as well as widespread international outrage. The UK government said it was appalled by the “deeply discriminatory” bill, which it said will “damage Uganda’s international reputation”. US President Joe Biden decried the act as “shameful” and “tragic violation of universal human rights”. He said Washington was considering “sanctions and restriction of entry into the United States against anyone involved in serious human rights abuses” – a suggestion that Ugandan officials may face repercussions. - [McCarthy rallies support for debt deal amid hints of mutiny]( McCarthy rallies support for debt deal amid hints of mutiny, Jennifer Scholtes, POLITICO With a passage vote set for Wednesday, a few Republicans have suggested using the Rules Committee to block the 99-page package from making it to the floor. And Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) further hinted at that strategy Monday afternoon. The Texas Republican said on Twitter that an “explicit” agreement was made during private negotiations in January to elect McCarthy to the speakership: No bill could get to the floor without “unanimous” Republican support on the Rules Committee, on which Roy serves. Any holdups like a delay in teeing up House floor debate would cost leaders precious time in clearing the bill through both chambers before the expected deadline for maxing out the nation’s borrowing authority. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen’s latest forecast pegs that X-date as June 5, now just a week away. Republicans working to rally support for the bill are already casting doubt on Roy’s claim of a secret promise. - [Daily Kos hats are here just in time for spring. Click here to get yours.]( - [The 2023 Texas legislative session started with a record budget surplus and ended with an impeached attorney general]( The 2023 Texas legislative session started with a record budget surplus and ended with an impeached attorney general, Kate McGee and Matthew Watkins, Texas Tribune When Patrick laid out his 30 legislative priorities in the Senate before the start of the session, he called them the “strongest, most conservative agenda ever.” On it were bills that would prevent transgender college students from playing on sports teams that correspond to their gender identities, ban gender-affirming medical care for trans youth and prohibit minors from attending drag shows. Phelan offered a different set of priorities, such as expanding Medicaid for new mothers and exempting sales tax for items like diapers and tampons. He threw support behind bills that required tech companies to give parents access to a minor’s privacy and account settings and would limit the collection of a minor’s data. He sought to bolster school safety and overhaul how the state funds its community colleges. [...] House Republicans wanted to lower by half the state’s cap on how much a home’s taxable value can grow each year and extend that benefit to businesses — an idea Senate Republicans rejected. The banner idea Senate GOP tax-cut writers proposed was to boost the state’s homestead exemption on school district taxes — or the chunk of a home’s value that can’t be taxed to pay for public schools. Disagreements started to play out on television and social media. - [Environmentalists in Virginia and West Virginia Regroup to Stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline, Eyeing a White House Protest]( Environmentalists in Virginia and West Virginia Regroup to Stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline, Eyeing a White House Protest, Jake Bolster, Inside Climate News On May 15, the U.S. Forest Service issued its “record of decision” to allow the construction of the pipeline, a much contested 303.5-mile project which, if completed, would transport fracked gas from northwestern West Virginia to southern Virginia, through a 3.5-mile corridor of the forest. [...] For the last eight years, many local landowners along the pipeline’s route in Virginia and West Virginia have expressed concerns about the construction on the grounds that it is dangerous, infringes on the environmental justice rights of several low-income and majority-minority communities in both states and would impede the region’s transition to renewable energy. “The most impacted people are already dealing with a number of environmental hazards across the route,” said Chisholm. He referenced, as one example, a map made by one of the organizations under POWHR’s umbrella of the “blast zones” along the pipeline; it shows parcels of land at risk of being impacted by an explosion should, for instance, materials that make up the pipeline degrade due to prolonged exposure to the elements. Several of these regions fall in environmental justice communities in southern Virginia. - [Elite High School’s Admissions Plan May Face Supreme Court Test]( Elite High School’s Admissions Plan May Face Supreme Court Test, Adam Liptak, The New York Times In the coming weeks, the Supreme Court is very likely to forbid colleges and universities to use race as a factor in admissions decisions. Indeed, when the cases challenging the admissions programs at Harvard and the University of North Carolina were argued in October, some justices were already looking at the next question on the horizon: whether admissions officers may promote racial diversity by using race-neutral criteria. “Your position,” Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh told a lawyer for the challengers, “will put a lot of pressure going forward, if it’s accepted, on what qualifies as race neutral in the first place.” That question grew more concrete last week, when a divided three-judge panel of a federal appeals court allowed an elite public high school in Alexandria, Va., to revise its admissions policy by, among other things, eliminating standardized tests and setting aside spots for the top students at every public middle school in the area. [...] It is a decent bet that the Supreme Court will agree to hear an appeal in that case and use it to answer questions left open in its coming decisions on the admissions practices of Harvard and U.N.C. ICYMI: Popular stories from the past week you won't want to miss: - [Trump's lawyer quits just as shoe drops in classified documents case]( - [Debt limit deal reached; Republicans hard-liners are livid]( - [Ukraine Update: The battle of the worst Russians thus begins]( Want even more Daily Kos? 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