by Corinne Murdock | Dec 15, 2022 | Education, News
By Corinne Murdock |
Northern Arizona University (NAU) launched a climate change program geared toward a career focused on corporations’ Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG) scoring. The program spans four courses, each costing $500 — $2,000 total.
NAU announced the online, non-credit certificate program last week. The courses will prepare students for greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting. GHG is a key part of ESG.
“[This will] help working professionals gain the skills needed to address climate change at the corporate or organizational level,” stated the press release.
In the program, students will quantify the greenhouse gas emissions from individual products or commodities, business or corporation operations, and local communities. Then, the students will propose and defend emission management, reduction, and mitigation strategies.
NAU explained in its course description of the program that most large corporations were expanding GHG accounting hires at a rapidly multiplying pace.
“Companies see aggressive emission reduction goals as good for business and a way to market themselves as climate-friendly. However, companies cannot manage what they don’t measure. Therefore, the need for skilled GHG accountants is growing exponentially,” stated NAU.
The university also pointed out that the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule change in March requiring all publicly traded companies to report their climate-related finance risk.
The SEC rule would require companies to include these ESG findings in their registration statements and periodic reports. This would include governance and risk management processes of climate-related risks; the potential or current material impact of climate-related risks; the potential or current strategy, business model, and outlook impact of climate-related risks; and the impact of climate-related events on financials. It would also require disclosures of a GHG emissions target or goal, and GHG emissions from purchased electricity (or other energy forms) as well as upstream and downstream activities in its value chain.
SEC Chair Gary Gensler declared that mandatory ESG disclosure would better serve investors’ decision-making and hold corporations accountable.
“I believe the SEC has a role to play when there’s this level of demand for consistent and comparable information that may affect financial performance,” said Gensler.
The timing of this course is significant, given that state leaders such as Treasurer Kimberly Yee oppose ESG. In September, Yee modified the state’s investment rules to prevent ESG ratings from investment considerations.
NAU sustainability professor Deborah Huntzinger stated that environmental policymaking required quantifiable data that ESG approaches like GHG accounting offer. Huntzinger and NAU Online director of continuing education Brenda Sipe created the new GHG accounting program.
“To design effective policies, whether at the corporate or national level, to mitigate rising emissions and human-driven climate change, we need to accurately track emissions,” stated Huntzinger. “Robust training in the best practices in GHG accounting will lead to a more educated workforce that can better inform corporate, organizational, community and national discussions about effective climate change mitigation strategies.”
Along with Huntzinger, carbon analyst Heather Aaron will teach the courses.
The World Economic Forum (WEF), the globalist lobbying organization that serves as a pioneer for ESG scoring systems, identifies GHG accounting as a critical component of ESG. In a July publication, the WEF issued guidelines advising that GHG was key to quantifying the “carbon value” of corporations.
The WEF, along with numerous powerful corporations and advocates of progressive reforms like ESG such as George Soros, BlackRock, Vanguard, JP Morgan Chase, Amazon, General Motors, the Sierra Club, issued comments or engaged in meetings with the SEC in support of the ESG mandate (though many offered suggestions for improvement).
NAU will also offer its GHG program at the graduate level, requiring students to complete a minimum of 12 credit hours. The regular course commences on Jan. 30 and remains open for six months of access.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Dec 15, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
The Phoenix City Council unanimously approved a plan to spend $102 million to replace its bus fleet with electric vehicles. Outgoing councilmember Sal DiCiccio wasn’t present.
Over $86.7 million (85 percent) comes from federal funding; over $15.3 million (15 percent) comes from regional funding. The initiative is part of the council’s goal of achieving a total zero-emissions bus fleet by 2040. The current fleet consists of 500 buses.
The city will procure a variety of electric buses: battery, hybrid, and hydrogen fuel cell. The council waived standard competition in its procurement process to award the five-year contract due to supply chain issues; reportedly, the city learned it couldn’t acquire its first round of zero-emissions buses until after 2025, well after its planned timeline. The city selected a supplier who could meet their timeline: the Washington State Transit Bus Cooperative.
Mayor Kate Gallego indicated that their goal of true zero-emissions would come from future negotiations with power companies. Gallego noted that the plans to create an electric charging grid launched by the Biden administration and state would facilitate their efforts.
“It cannot be zero-emission if the power going in is not zero-emission,” stated Gallego.
READ THE COUNCIL’S BUS FLEET PLAN
Councilwoman Yassamin Ansari noted that this plan put the city on the same timeline to zero-emissions as New York City and California. Ansari promised that the council would accelerate their plan even further once the supply chain stabilizes and inflation costs reduce.
Ansari credited the Sierra Club, Arizona Public Interest Research Group (PIRG), Southwest Energy Efficiency Project (SWEEP), American Lung Association (ALA), and CHISPA AZ for allowing their plan to come to fruition.
“We will only be ordering hybrid and zero-emission buses after 2024, which will completely then end our dependence on fossil fuel transit in terms of new purchases,” stated Ansari. “This is a public health win, a quality of life win, a climate win, and a very big win for Phoenix.”
Public comment came from two organizations that advocated heavily for the $102 million expenditure:
Joanna Struther, ALA senior director of advocacy, cited ALA data ranking Phoenix as the fifth-most polluted city in the nation. Struther stated that the city’s air pollution presented a severe harm to circulatory systems.
The ALA claimed that electrification of city fleets would result in 38,000 less asthma attacks and $15.1 billion in public health benefits. ALA asserted that its polling revealed 70 to 80 percent support among Arizonans for electric vehicles.
PIRG’s executive director, Diane Brown, noted that not only would residents benefit from improved air quality from bus electrification, but the city would increase its access to federal funding.
The city rejected a plan last year to renew their current fleet powered by fossil fuels for another five years.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Dec 14, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
This week, 15 illegal immigrant farm workers are petitioning Congress to pass a pathway to citizenship in year-end legislation. An undisclosed number came from Arizona. The remainder came from California, Idaho, Michigan, and Georgia.
United Farm Workers (UFW), a labor union, sent this 15-member delegation to represent the interests of about 2.4 million illegal immigrant farm workers across the country.
The labor union was welcomed by the Biden administration. UFW Foundation CEO Diana Tellefson Torres and President Teresa Romero attended the White House reception.
In a press release, Romero said that the nation’s food security relied on mass conferment of legal status to the 2.4 million UFW workers. Romero insisted that doing so would save the nation over $430 million in wages for this upcoming year.
“It’s time to stop playing politics and pass the deal we have negotiated into law,” stated Romero. Our nation’s food security and the lives of hundreds of thousands of farm workers are on the line.”
In the same press release, Torres said that Congress could thank illegal immigrant workers for their family holiday meals.
“This begs the question, will Congressmembers continue to leave the very people who nurture their families and this nation in limbo this legislative session or will they do the right thing and pass a pathway to legal status for farm workers?”
According to USDA data updated in March, around half of farm workers are illegal.
From the very start of his administration, President Joe Biden has expressed a desire to provide a pathway to citizenship. Biden’s vision would be far greater than what UFW proposed. The president has stated his intent to provide a pathway to citizenship for the nearly 11 million illegal immigrants in the country currently.
Biden’s initial plan submitted to Congress last January, the U.S. Citizenship Act of 2021, proposed an eight-year pathway: illegal immigrants receive a five-year temporary status, have a green card for three years, and then apply for citizenship. The Biden administration apparently gave The Washington Post a two-day advance exclusive on details of the bill.
In October, Biden reiterated his desire for the 11 million-strong pathway to citizenship. The president also revoked former President Donald Trump’s immigration restrictions on Muslim and African-majority countries; restarted former President Barack Obama’s Haitian Family Reunification Parole (HFRP) Program; and issued Temporary Protected Status to Cameroonian, Ethiopian, Haitian, Somalian, South Sudanese, and Sudanese nationals.
Democrats have struggled to get the necessary votes to pass any of their desired pathways to citizenship: even for “Dreamers,” the recipients of Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA).
Last week, the House’s New Democrat Coalition (NDC) called on its fellow members to pass Dreamer protections before session ends this month. Leading the NDC call to action were Reps. Greg Stanton (D-AZ-09) and Salud Carbajal (D-CA-24): the NDC’s immigration task force co-chairs.
“Protecting Dreamers has long been a top priority for the New Democrat Coalition. As their fate hangs in the balance, we are committed to working with our colleagues in the House and Senate to pass bipartisan legislation before the end of the year that gives Dreamers the stability and security they’ve been waiting for and that they deserve,” stated Stanton and Carbajal. “The stakes are too high for inaction.”
Several days before Stanton’s call to action, Roll Call reported that a bipartisan pathway to citizenship for Dreamers was taking shape in the Senate. Sens. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) proposed measures that would exchange citizenship for stronger border security.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Dec 14, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) awarded $7.3 million to the University of Arizona (UArizona) for a study on “long COVID.” Aiding this research will be the Arizona Department of Health Services and UArizona’s CoVHORT system: a data collection effort launched early in the pandemic that contains over 8,500 participants.
UArizona is one of multiple research facilities throughout the nation examining post-COVID-19 conditions. Temple University, the University of Indiana, and Comagine Health will also conduct studies. UArizona researchers will estimate post-COVID-19 complications based on health care record data, and track the conditions of at least 1,000 individuals over the next two years.
In addition to regular scientific researchers, UArizona included the interim assistant dean of diversity, equity, and inclusion in the multimillion-dollar study: Velia Leybas Nuno.
The remainder of the research team includes Sydney Pettygrove, associate research professor; Leslie Farland, assistant professor and BIO5 Institute member; Felina Cordova-Marks, assistant professor; Kacey Ernst, professor and program director of epidemiology; Elizabeth Jacobs, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics; Pamela Garcia-Filion, College of Medicine-Phoenix associate research professor; Vignesh Subbian, College of Engineering assistant professor and Center for Biomedical Informatics and Biostatistics associate director; and Vern Pilling, Center for Biomedical Informatics and Biostatistics director.
UArizona’s research arises from the Biden administration’s April announcement that it was accelerating research efforts to understand long COVID.
The CDC defines “long COVID,” also called “post-COVID conditions” (PCC), as a vague and varying array of symptoms that could last indefinitely and impact anyone who’s had any degree of COVID-19 infection — in some cases, even those who never tested positive for COVID.
Symptoms include, but aren’t limited to: fatigue, brain fog, labored breathing, headaches, dizziness, heart palpitations, chest pain, cough, joint or muscle pain, depression, anxiety, fever, sleep problems, pins-and-needles, diarrhea, stomach pain, rash, change in menstrual cycles, and change or loss of taste or smell. These symptoms may lead to damage of the lungs, heart, kidneys, neurological system, circulatory system, and mental health.
The CDC didn’t definitively state that unvaccinated individuals had a greater risk of long COVID than the vaccinated. No tests exist to diagnose long COVID.
Concurrent with the rise of “long COVID” is a rise in adverse reactions to the COVID-19 vaccine. Symptoms of the two ailments overlap consistently.
Last July, on the 31st anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), the Biden administration classified long COVID as a disability. The Health and Human Services (HHS) Office for Civil Rights and DOJ Civil Rights Division devised the long COVID disability guidance.
The ADA prevents discrimination based on disability. This includes additional time on tests for students, accommodations for customers who can’t stand for long periods of time in line, refueling assistance at a gas station for a disabled customer, and even service animal assistance for those who grow dizzy while standing for long periods of time.
The Biden administration also shared that it is looking to identify demographic patterns in long COVID victims in order to achieve equity, the health burdens and financial costs that the phenomenon incurs, and whether COVID vaccines do reduce long COVID.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Dec 14, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
Kari Lake and Katie Hobbs will face off again over election matters next week — this time, over the course of two days in court.
Lake’s lawsuit against Hobbs and Maricopa County kicked off on Tuesday. Judge Peter Thompson scheduled the two-day hearing for Dec. 21 and 22.
Kari Lake’s counsel, Bryan Blehm and Kurt Olsen, filed an ex parte motion to substitute one of the exhibits: “Attachment C.” They reportedly failed to redact voter signatures on their filings. The judge admitted them, however, which will require the clerk’s office to scan thousands of pages containing the redacted filings into the system.
Andy Gaona, on behalf of Hobbs in her capacity as secretary of state, and Tom Liddy, on behalf of Maricopa County, both said they will file to dismiss. Alexis Danneman was present on behalf of Hobbs as governor-elect.
The judge conferred extensively with all counsel on when and for how long hearings should take place, given the transfer of power designating Hobbs as governor fast approaching (Jan. 2). However, Gaona, Danneman, and Liddy expressed confidence that the judge would dismiss the case and insisted that an evidentiary hearing wasn’t necessary.
However, the judge stated that the substantial amount of evidence before him would require a “reasonable amount of time” to review. He noted that a hearing spanning multiple days would take the case right up to Jan. 2.
“Looking at the timing of this, this is a statutory creature,” said Thompson. “This isn’t a ruling that I will be able to do in 15 minutes.”
Blehm asked for a three day “trial” at minimum, but the judge refused. Thompson stated that the case was a “hearing, not a full-blown trial” that would take a few hours for each side to argue, at most.
Gaona warned that a lengthy hearing would threaten an orderly transition of power. He stated that Lake’s case was “non-existent.”
Liddy argued most of Lake’s evidence was duplicative, and some of the remainder was “of dubious probative value.” Liddy also noted that his team received a thumb drive on Tuesday morning containing confidential voter data. AZ Free News reached out for comment on this point. Liddy explained that they, the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office, received the thumb drive from the clerk of the board after it was served to the county by Lake’s team late Monday. The thumb drive contained about 6,000 pages of documents, many containing voter information such as copies of voters’ signatures.
Blehm took issue with what he claimed was a characterization of their evidence’s procurement by Liddy, but Liddy said he didn’t issue any characterization.
Blehm also asked the judge for permission to inspect the ballots. Thompson appeared confused by this request and denied it.
Technical issues with the conference call derailed the hearing for the better part of the hour, and continued to plague the livestream for the remainder of the hearing.
The cause came from the publication of the conference call access information from those with massive followings such as the Democracy Docket, Wendy Rogers, and Gateway Pundit. Hundreds of members of the public jumped onto the call, leaving some of the litigants out. Initially, Lake and her legal team were unable to access the conference call.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
by Corinne Murdock | Dec 13, 2022 | News
By Corinne Murdock |
On Monday, the Mohave County Board of Supervisors canceled their upcoming special meeting to discuss potential election litigation against Maricopa County and Secretary of State Katie Hobbs.
The board didn’t offer an explanation for their decision to cancel the meeting. They first announced the special meeting last week.
AZ Free News reached out to the board’s communications director for comment. He didn’t respond by press time.
The county delayed certification of their election results amid expressed uncertainty over the validity of Maricopa County’s results. They certified their results about two weeks ago. Chairman Ron Gould stated during the certification that he was compelled under threat of arrest to certify the results.
“I vote aye under duress. I found out today that I have no choice but to vote ‘aye’ or I will be arrested and charged with a felony,” stated Gould. “I don’t think that’s what our Founders had in mind when they used a democratic process to elect our leaders, our form of self-government. I find that very disheartening.”
The board is facing an open meeting law complaint filed by a Kingman-based political action committee (PAC) for making a “political statement” during certification of the election results. The PAC, Real Change for LD5, named Chairman Ron Gould and Supervisors Hildy Anguis and Travis Lingenfelter in the complaint submitted to Attorney General Mark Brnovich.
Chairman Ron Gould called the complaint “baseless” in a statement to Mohave Valley Daily News.
“The agenda states ‘discussion and possible action re: Approval of the Canvass of the election,’” stated Gould. “I am sure that the attorney general will agree that the phrase possible action would cover approval and denial.”
Behind the complaint is the PAC founder and chair, J’aime Morgaine. She sued Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ-04) in 2018 after he blocked her from his Facebook page; the ACLU picked up the lawsuit after Gosar restored her access and she dropped it. However, the ACLU also voluntarily dismissed the case four months later.
That same year, Morgaine ran an unsuccessful bid for the State Senate. She lost in the general election to Sen. Sonny Borrelli (LD-30).
In a statement, Morgaine called the board members’ protest over the election results a “nasty habit” that undermined confidence in elections.
“The bottom line is this is an election integrity issue,” said Morgaine. “These supervisors have every right to be angry and protest in any personal capacity, but they do not have the right or legal authority to misappropriate Mohave County’s governing forum or taxpayer resources to perpetuate disinformation about Mohave County’s election integrity and undermine confidence in Arizona’s elections.”
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
