Royal Caribbean’s Newest Ship Stuck At Port After Workers Catch COVID
Europe recorded more than one million COVID-19 cases last week, an increase of 9% from the previous week and a reversal in a six-week decline. There are fears of new variants spreading around the continent. So it comes as no surprise that members of Royal Caribbean International’s newest cruise ship, Odyssey of the Seas, recently tested positive for the virus, forcing the vessel to remain docked at Bremerhaven, Germany, reported NDR German news site.
Several German newspapers reported that “two employees on the Odyssey of the Seas” tested positive for the virus on Mar. 3 and were confirmed on Mar. 4 via PCR tests. The estimated 500 crew and workers have been quarantined on the ship.
According to NDR, the port medical service in Bremerhaven has ordered the vessel to remain in Bremerhaven until further notice.
The Meyer Werft shipyard already completed initial tests of the vessel in the North Sea. Further sea trials were supposed to be completed later this month, but NDR said it is “unclear when it can take off for the planned test drives.” The shipyard is scheduled to deliver the Odyssey to Royal Caribbean next month ahead of his first sailing from Haifa, a northern Israeli port city, in May.
This comes as the so-called U.K. variant has spread across Europe. According to WHO experts, the new variant is 50% more transmissible than the virus that surged early last year.
While the global travel and tourism industry is preparing for a banner year as vaccine rollouts and unprecedented fiscal and monetary stimulus has led some economists to believe there is massive “pent up demand,” it appears the virus pandemic continues to cause bottlenecks in the return to normalcy for specific industries.
I entered Martin Gurri’s world on August 1, 2015. Though I hadn’t read The Revolt of the Public, at the time a little-known book by the former CIA analyst of open news sources, I hit a disorienting moment of a type he’d described in his opening chapter. There are times, he wrote, “when tomorrow no longer resembles yesterday… the compass cracks, by which we navigate existence. We are lost at sea.”
Gurri’s book is about how popular uprisings are triggered by collapses of faith in traditional hierarchies of power. I felt such a collapse that day in Waterloo, Iowa, covering the Republican presidential primary. The first debate was five days away and the man expected to occupy center stage, Donald Trump, held a seemingly inexplicable six-point lead.
Two weeks before, on July 18th, Trump lashed out against former Republican nominee John McCain. Even McCain’s critics considered his physical and mental scars from years as a Vietnam war prisoner to be unassailable proofs of his patriotic gravitas, but the service-evading Trump was having none of it. “I don’t like losers,” he said, adding, “He’s only a war hero because he was captured.” It was the universal belief among colleagues in campaign journalism that this was an unsurvivable gaffe, a “Dean scream” moment. We expected him to apologize and wash out. Instead, he called McCain a “dummy” and kept a firmgrasp on the lead.
A different candidate, New Jersey governor Chris Christie, was in Waterloo. Two years before, Time all but dubbed Christie the favorite for 2016 with a silhouette cover portrait, over the nastily shallow (but publicity-generating) double-entendre headline, THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM. Christie was every Washington consultant’s idea of a “crossover” superstar. I’d describe the concept in Rolling Stone as someone “mean enough for the right-wing, but also knows a gay person or once read a French novel.”
Christie parked himself in the middle of Waterloo’s annual “Irish fest” street fair, waiting for an Iowan to ask for a souvenir campaign handshake. He had his hand out and thumb stuck upwards, like an Iguanodon. Nobody came. Kids ran around him like he was a shrubbery. Two young women, giggling about something that clearly had nothing to do with him, walked his way, separated just long enough to avoid hitting him, then linked up again a few yards down. He eventually posed with a few passersby, but the rubbernecking that usually attends the arrival of any “famous politician” was conspicuously absent.
Later, I sat in the park discussing Trump’s stubborn grasp on the lead with another reporter, an Iowan. “It’s amazing,” he said, shaking his head. “We’re beating the shit out of the guy, and he just won’t die.” He compared it to a nightmare, where you stab an attacking monster over and over, and nothing happens.
Elections in the pre-Trump era had been stale rituals. As recently as 2013, Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post called them “remarkably scripted and controlled.” Donors, party chiefs, and pundits could concoct contenders through sheer alchemy, mesmerizing the public with incantations like “electability.” But in Iowa that summer, one “electable” Republican candidate after another — from Jeb Bush to Scott Walker to Marco Rubio — flopped in public appearances, savaged as phonies on social media. Walker, the betting favorite among reporters, saw his campaign deflated when his online strategist, Liz Muir, started tweeting her real feelings about Iowa (including the classic, “#agsubsidies #ethanol #brainless”).
I’d spent weeks crisscrossing the state in search of even one piece of evidence that conventional wisdom still had predictive power in Republican politics, finding none. Now, here was Christie, reduced from being lionized in a Time cover story as a favorite and a “guy who loves his mother and gets it done,” to being nobody at all, a clown standing alone in a park. The realization that no one was in control of the campaign show anymore was jarring even to me, a critic of the old gatekeeping ritual.
In the introduction to The Revolt of the Public, Arnold Kling speaks of a different “Gurri moment”: when Dan Rather’s 2004 expose about George W. Bush’s military service was blown up by an amateur blogging under the name “Bucklehead.” In the past, a media titan like CBS could only be second-guessed by another major institutional power. In “Rathergate,” both the network and one of its most iconic celebrities were humiliated by a single individual, a preview of the coming disorientation.
The thesis of The Revolt of the Public is that traditional centralized powers are losing — have lost — authority, in large part because of the demystifying effect of the Internet. The information explosion undermined the elite monopoly on truth, exposing long-concealed flaws. Many analysts had noted the disruptive power of the Internet, but what made Gurri unique is that he also predicted with depressingly humorous accuracy how traditional hierarchies would respond to this challenge: in a delusional, ham-fisted, authoritarian manner that would only confirm the worst suspicions of the public, accelerating the inevitable throw-the-bums-out campaigns. This assessment of the motive for rising public intransigence was not exactly welcomed, but either way, as Kling wrote, “Martin Gurri saw it coming.”
Gurri also noted that public revolts would likely arrive unattached to coherent plans, pushing society into interminable cycles of zero-sum clashes between myopic authorities and their increasingly furious subjects. He called this a “paralysis of distrust,” where outsiders can “neutralize but not replace the center” and “networks can protest and overthrow, but never govern.” With a nod to Yeats, Gurri summed up: “The center cannot hold, and the border has no clue what to do about it.”
Mutant COVID Strains In Florida, New York Threaten To Derail US Recovery, BofA Warns
Dr. Fauci and other health experts are warning about the prospect of a “4th wave” of COVID infections as mutated strains of the virus comprise a growing share of new COVID infections in the US, even as the JNJ one-shot vaccine promises to accelerate the pace of vaccinations. Worries about spreading mutant strains are being amplified by research showing that B.1.1.7 (first identified in the UK, also known as the “Kent” strain, after where it was first isolated and identified) might be on the cusp of becoming the most prevalent strain in the US.
According to research cited in a note published Monday by a team of researchers at BofA, Florida is on the cusp of seeing the UK variant become the “dominant” strain in the state. And although hospitalizations, new cases and deaths have slowed in the Sunshine State, researchers are concerned that the variants are slowing the ebb of the pandemic in the state – and could possibly supercharge it. Cases and hospitalizations are still slowing in the state, just not as quickly as they were in January.
The team of analysts at BofA said these trends have raised concerns about Florida becoming a bellwether state for the spread of the new variants, which many fear could surge as states from Texas to Connecticut move to loosen at least some (or in Texas’s case, practically all) virus-related restrictions. The fact that the state’s positivity ratio has declined since the start of the year suggests that the virus truly is receding (in other words, the lower case numbers aren’t due to solely to a pullback in testing).
Perhaps counterintuitively, the analysts at BofA are worried that the UK variant might not be as dominant in Florida as they believe. They also gamed out two additional scenarios that they said would lead to a greater outlook.
We see three possible explanations for Florida’s continued improvement. First, the spread of the new variant might not be as far along as estimated. So the old variant might still be contracting off a much larger base, while the new variant is growing off a small base. This would not be good news as it would suggest an imminent increase in cases as the new variant continues to spread.
Second, vaccines might be more effective at containing the virus than we thought, by making both vaccinated people and their close contacts less vulnerable. This would be good news because the cumulative effect of vaccines should increase quickly as the roll-out gains momentum. The third explanation, which is least likely in our view, is that the B.1.1.7 variant is significantly less contagious than widely estimated. This would probably be the best news of all.
But Florida isn’t the only state struggling with COVID mutations: The B.1.526 variant that is believed to have originated in New York State is also raising concerns, according to BofA. New York cases have dropped more slowly than in the rest of the country, and have flat-lined in the last ten days. Hospitalizations are still falling, but, as the analysts remind us, they are a lagging indicator.
Thanks to these trends, the Empire State now has the second-highest number of confirmed cases per capita in the country, after New Jersey (both are higher than California, which leads in total cases, though it’s massive population makes for a lower ratio).
However, because the testing rate in New York is about 3x the national average, the positivity ratio – measuring number of positive cases vs. total tests – in the state has been steady at around 3.2% for about a week, compared with the national average of nearly 5%. So, while New York might be feeling the impact of the new variant, the team at BofA doesn’t see reason for alarm until the positivity rate moves significantly higher.
Looking at the US in total, the analysts at BofA believe new COVID cases could climb in the coming weeks due to the growing presence of the new mutant “variant” strains. Fortunately, they only expect a modest rise through the end of April, after which, they believe, case numbers will move lower again.
Of course, all of this depends on how effective the first generation of vaccines is in offering protection to patients from the growing number of mutant strains.
Repo Chaos Continues: “Market Just Doesn’t Know Where To Price The 10-Year”
The Federal Reserve and Jay Powell want to pretend that all is well with the repo market, but nothing could be further from the truth.
Last Thursday, we presented to our readers the latest repo market data showing just how broken and inverted the traditional fund flows surrounding the world’s “most liquid” and important security had become in “Historic Repo Market Insanity: 10Y Treasury Trades At -4% In Repo Ahead Of Monster Short Squeeze.” One day later, the chaos got even worse as discussed in “10Y Treasury Hits A Stunning -4.25% In Repo As Yields Blow Out.” Very simply, this meant that an investor in the repo market lending money so others could short the 10Y would end up paying rather than getting paid. As we explained said “this is a clear breach of one of the most fundamental relationships in the repo market, where lenders of cash always get paid – however little – in order to make a more liquid and efficient market.”
The repo rate sliding far below the “fails charge” of 3.00% which is viewed as the lowest theoretical level where dealers are punished for not delivering a 10Y Treasury i.e., there is a delivery “fail”, was striking but what was even more striking is that the recent repo crunch has been surpassed just once in history: when the 10Y hit a record low repo print of -5.75% during the fear and loathing of the covid crash chaos on 3/13/20, when the Treasury bond market essentially broke down for several hours.
And even though the self-proclaimed “repo experts” and various assorted Fed cheerleaders were certain that this historic repo inversion – which as we explained was the result of unprecedented, record shorting of the 10Y Note – would normalize as soon as today following last week’s announcement of Wednesday’s $38BN 10Y auction, this has not happened. In fact, the situation has only gotten worse, with the 10Y opening at -2.65% and trading as low as -3.75% – below the fails charge for the 4th straight day…
… before closing at -2.90% according to Curvature Securities.
Commenting on today’s action, Curvature’s Scott Skyrm repeats what we already knew, that there is such a massive short out there that there are simply not enough securities for all shorts to be covered, meanwhile continued shorting piles on leading to even more negative repo rates:
“the market took $8.5 billion (out of $8.5 billion available) today from the Fed and took $9.9 billion out of $9.9 billion on Friday. The Street needs the SOMA securities lending supply to cover the shorts, and not all shorts are getting covered!”
So desperate are shorts that they are covering with Off-the-Runs: “There’s no doubt that some shorts rolled back into the Old 10 Year, because there’s more interest in the Old 10 Year over the past two days”, Skyrm writes with Bloomberg echoing what we said last week, namely that “when the interest rate on overnight cash loans backed by the newest 10-year note goes below -3%, it’s cheaper to pay the regulatory fine for failing to return the collateral on time than it is to renew the loan — a sign that short selling is intense” and that there simply isn’t enough underlying paper available to cover all shorts.
But the most interesting observations is the repo guru’s comparison between the O/N average repo an the March 15 term (when the 10Y settles): as Skyrm notes, “one thing that’s really interesting is how the 3/15 term market follows the overnight average. Basically, that means the market doesn’t know where to price the 10 Year.”
The convergence of the two series means that “there’s no expectation of [the price] loosening or tightening this week” and while Skyrm admits he has no idea what happens next, he adds that “the market just doesn’t know” either. However, “whichever direction it goes, it will be volatile!”
Finally, Bloomberg once again ends on an optimistic note, inferring from past examples of superspecial repo tightness that the repo market “may remain tight until this week’s $38BN reopening auction settles on March 15.” Of course, if that doesn’t happen, and if the repo chaos persists all the way into the March 17 FOMC, then all bets are off.
Assad & Syrian First Lady Test Positive For Coronavirus
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and his wife Asma have confirmed they have coronavirusaccording to a Monday statement from the president’s office and are said to be experiencing minor symptoms.
The statement said they were in “good health and in stable condition” and are continuing to work in isolation at home. The 55-year old leader of Syria and his wife – the latter who recently survived breast cancer, took PCR tests after feeling minor symptoms that were consistent with the virus.
The news comes on the heels of the war-torn country announcing last week that it’s initiated a vaccination campaign; however, few details have been made public. It’s unclear whether or not the president or first lady have received an initial dose of vaccine.
According to ABC News, “The health minister said the government procured the vaccines from a friendly country, which he declined to name.” Likely Russia is providing its Sputnik V vaccine.
The official recorded case numbers in Syria are nearly 16,000 infections so far, including 1,063 deaths, but the true numbers are believed to be far higher for lack of testing throughout the beginning months of the pandemic.
Recently a storm of controversy erupted after international reports claimed that Damascus secretly did a deal with Israel to procure vaccines – something which has been batted down by both sides.
“The New York Times reported last month that Israel secretly agreed to send Syria some vaccine doses as part of a prisoner swap,”Axios observed. “Both countries deny the report.”
Next week will mark ten years since the start of the war in Syria, which almost immediately became internationalized into a proxy war pushing for regime change, and later a struggle between the US and Russia for dominance in the Middle East.
According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), 2021 will be the second year in a row in which the federal debt exceeds Gross Domestic Product (GDP). CBO also projected that this year’s federal deficit will be 2.3 trillion dollars, which is 900 billion dollars less than last year. However, CBO’s projections do not include the 1.9 trillion dollars “stimulus” bill Congress is likely to pass.
The CBO’s report was largely ignored by Congress and the media. One reason the report did not get the attention it deserves is Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s continued commitment to making sure Fed policies enable Congress to spend as much as Congress deems necessary to address the economic fallout from the coronavirus panic.
As financial analyst Peter Schiff points out, the Fed’s commitment to ensuring the government can run up massive debt means the Fed will not allow interest rates to increase to anywhere near what they would be in a free market. This is because increasing interest rates would cause the federal government’s debt payments to rise to unsustainable levels. Yet, the Fed cannot admit it is going to keep rates near, or even below, zero indefinitely without unsettling the markets. So, the Fed continues to promise interest rate hikes in the future and the markets pretend to believe the Fed. When (or if) the lockdowns end, the Fed will find a new crisis justifying “temporarily” keeping interest rates low.
The Federal Reserve has not just endorsed massive federal spending, Fed Chairman Powell has also endorsed masks, vaccines, and social distancing to defeat the coronavirus and restore the economy. It is disappointing, but not surprising, to see the Fed go full Fauci.
The overreaction to coronavirus is a cause of the explosion in federal spending and debt we have witnessed over the last year. However, federal spending already greatly increased from January 2017 until the lockdowns. This spending growth occurred under a Republican president, a Republican Senate, and, from 2017 to 2019, a Republican House. One bright spot in Democratic control of the presidency and both houses of Congress is more Republicans will fight excessive spending and claim to be “deficit hawks.”
Republican hypocrisy in claiming to care about spending and debt only when a Democrat sits in the Oval Office is one reason why Democrats can so easily disregard debt. Another reason is the left’s embrace of Modern Monetary Theory. Modern Monetary Theory is the latest version of the fairy tale that politicians need not worry about debt and deficits as long as the central bank can monetize the federal debt.
Unless the government changes course, America will experience a crisis greater than the Great Depression. The crisis will include a final rejection of the dollar’s world reserve currency status. There will also be much increased price inflation. At that point Congress will have no choice but to limit spending, although it will try to hide cuts in popular entitlement programs by “adjusting” government measures of inflation. Congress could then blame the Fed for the reduction in value of government benefits.
Those who know the truth have two responsibilities. First, ensure they and their families are protected when the crash comes. Second, redouble efforts to spread the ideas of liberty and grow the liberty movement so politicians are pressured to cut spending and debt and to end the Fed.
China FM Demands Biden Reverse “Dangerous” Taiwan Stance, Otherwise “World Will Be Far From Tranquil”
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi gave his annual news briefing on Sunday and as expected he hammered away at America’s presence and increasing attempts to insert itself politically in the South China Sea region.
In particular he demanded that the US stop “crossing lines and playing with fire” on Taiwan in a stark message to Biden, underscoring that Beijing sees “no room for compromise or concessions” when it comes to Chinese sovereignty over the democratically ruled island. Biden’s doubling down on many Trump policies when it comes to ‘confronting’ China was described by Wang as a “dangerous practice” that must be immediately reversed.
And what sounds like both a warning to other global powers and a threat to the US in particular, Wang continued: “It is important that the United States recognizes this as soon as possible,” adding that, “Otherwise, the world will remain far from tranquil.”
He emphasized a litany of instances of US “bullying” and “interference” in China’s own affairs, describing Washington’s “willfully interfering in other countries’ internal affairs in the name of democracy and human rights.” One example given was the US calling out human rights abuses against the minority Uighur Muslim population. “The claim that there is genocide in Xinjiang couldn’t be more preposterous. It is just a rumor fabricated with ulterior motives and a lie through and through,” he said.
Wang’s remarks were issued on the sidelines of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. The major parliamentary session to kick off the year occurs every Spring. This year the NPC is set to initiate a far-reaching overhaul of Hong Kong’s electoral system, intent on further cementing its power following last year’s draconian national security law which has effectively crushed anti-mainland dissent.
Former governor of Hong Kong Lord Chris Patten was cited in BBC as saying that China’s Communist Party had “taken the biggest step so far to obliterate Hong Kong’s freedoms and aspirations for greater democracy under the rule of law”.
Wang, however, touted in his remarks that, “Hong Kong’s shift from chaos to stability fully serves the interests of all parties. It will provide stronger guarantees for safeguarding Hong Kong citizens’ rights and foreign investors’ lawful interests.”
The one-China principle is a “red line” that must not be crossed in China-U.S. relations, State Councilor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi said Sunday, adding that the Chinese government will never compromise on the Taiwan question. pic.twitter.com/btorhWohY3
— Chinese Embassy in CZ (@ChineseEmbinCZ) March 7, 2021
The US and European countries have condemned these moves to ensure only “patriots” can run in Hong Kong elections. Wang had this and other examples in mind when in his address he touted Beijing’s recent ‘successes’ in battling “hegemony, high-handedness and bullying” and “outright interference in China’s domestic affairs” out of Washington.
Another example offered was concerning recent US and Western allied naval maneuvers: “The US and other Western countries frequently stir up troubles in the region, trying to drive a wedge using the South China Sea issue. They have only one purpose: to sabotage peace and disturb regional stability,” Wang said.
Interestingly enough Wang offered one starting point for US cooperation as potentially happening on the climate front. “I hope China and the U.S. restarting cooperation on climate change can also bring a positive change of climate to bilateral ties,” Wang said.
* * *
Additionally Wang’s briefing reviewed China’s relations with other major world powers and how Beijing is handling pressing crises like the pandemic as follows, according to a Bloomberg review:
Europe relations: “China and Europe are two important players in this multipolar world. The relationship is equal. It is open. It is not targeting any third party or controlled by anyone else.”
Vaccine diplomacy: “We’re also ready to work with the International Olympic Committee to provide vaccines to Olympians.”
Trade: “The answer is not to retreating to protectionism, isolation or decoupling, but to work together to make globalization open, inclusive, balanced and beneficial for all.”
Japan tensions: “I hope that Japanese society will embrace a more objective and rational conception of China, and solidify public support for long-term steady progress in China-Japan relations.”
Indian border: “The rights and wrongs of what happened in the border area last year are clear, so are the gains and losses. The facts once again prove that unilaterally creating confrontation will not solve the problem.”
Russia cooperation: “We will set the example of strategic mutual trust by firmly supporting each other in upholding core and major interests, jointly opposing color revolutions, countering disinformation, and safeguarding national sovereignty and political security.”
By One Gauge, Inflation Fears Are The Highest This Century
By Ven Ram, Bloomberg macro commentator
What do you get when you combine potent fiscal and monetary stimulus with a U.S. economy on the cusp of a rebound amid surging oil prices? The answer: fears that medium-term inflation relative to the longer term running at the fastest clip since nearly the turn of the century.
The spread between U.S. five- and 10-year inflation breakevens is now the most positive it’s ever been in Bloomberg data going back to the start of 2002. The differential, which may be thought of as the market’s evolution of inflation over the medium term versus the longer term, went briefly above zero following the financial crisis as well, but wasn’t so pronounced.
The differential is a sign of the market’s collective thinking that the $1.9-trillion fiscal relief ready for endorsement by the House will stoke price pressures over the medium term without necessarily impinging on the evolution of inflation over the longer term. In other words, secular inflation may still be elusive, which is another reason why the Fed may decide to look past price pressures in the here and now (and witness how prescient last year’s virtual Jackson Hole conference seems in hindsight in the context of average inflation targeting, though I would call it serendipity).
The surge in non-farm payrolls for February and the progress on vaccination show a strong economic rebound may be on the cards. As if on cue, Brent crude prices are hovering around $70 a barrel. All these mean that the breakeven spread is likely to stay elevated for now.
In Embarrassing Senior Moment, Biden Forgets What Pentagon’s Called, Blanks On Secretary Of Defense Name
Joe Biden appears to be getting worse.
After bumbling through a public appearance last week – at one point mumbling “What am I doing here?” while forgetting the names of key Democrats, the President of the United States on Monday couldn’t remember the name of the Pentagon, or his own Secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin– who spoke minutes before Biden took the stage to offer remarks during International Women’s Day.
Whoops: Biden forgets the name of the Pentagon, as well as the name of his secretary of Defense, Lloyd Austin pic.twitter.com/ZtcgHLBIAO
On Monday, the Washington Post noted that Vice President Kamala Harris is taking an “unusually large role” in shaping Biden’s foreign policy – having spoken with six world leaders independently of Biden, and was a “vocal participant in deliberations over how to respond to Iran-backed militias’ attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, as well as whether to sanction Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi,” according to the White House.
Of course, both Biden and Harris did refer to the “Harris administration” on more than one occasion during the 2020 election.
Kamala Harris lets the truth slip: “a Harris Administration together with Joe Biden” pic.twitter.com/kX2wbDWwgm
In late February, dozens of House Democrats asked Biden to relinquish sole authority to use nuclear weapons, since “The military is obligated to carry out the order if they assess it is legal under the laws of war,” should Biden – or a future president – choose to launch nukes without consulting advisers.
Two weeks later, a bipartisan group of Senators introduced legislation which would strip Biden of the ability to launch military operations without first seeking congressional approval after Biden bombed Syria.
Former Clinton insider Dick Morris predicted that Democrats will invoke the 25th Amendment on Biden “So that a strike could not be launched without consulting with his Cabinet or with leaders of Congress, something that no president has been asked to do in 76 years since we’ve had the bomb,” adding “I think both of those indicate that the Democrats have in the back of their minds, and increasingly towards the front of their minds, moving to oust Biden under the 25th Amendment.”
Amazing, considering Biden received the most votes in history.
President Joe Biden was sued by 12 states over a climate change-related executive order, saying it has the potential to severely impact states’ economies.
State attorneys general from Arkansas, Arizona, Indiana, Kansas, Montana, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Utah joined a lawsuit filed by Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt.
“Manufacturing, agriculture, and energy production are essential to Missouri’s economy and employ thousands of hard-working Missourians across the state. Under President Biden’s executive order, which he didn’t have the authority to enact, these hard-working Missourians who have lived and worked this land for generations could be left in the dust,” Schmitt, a Republican, said in a statement on Monday.
The lawsuit is designed to challenge Biden’s Executive Order 13990, titled “Protecting Public Health and the Environment and Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” and accuses the Biden administration of not having sufficient authority to issue binding numbers on the “social costs of greenhouse gases” in federal regulations.
“From higher energy bills to lost jobs, this massive expansion of federal regulatory power has the potential to impact nearly every household in this state—that’s why today I’m leading a coalition of states to put a stop to this executive order and protect Missouri families,” said Schmitt.
The Epoch Times has reached out to the White House for comment.
The suit argues that Biden’s order could inflict trillions of dollars of damage to the U.S. economy, while saying that the executive order threatens the Constitution’s separation of powers doctrine.
“In practice, this enormous figure will be used to justify an equally enormous expansion of federal regulatory power that will intrude into every aspect of Americans’ lives—from their cars, to their refrigerators and homes, to their grocery and electric bills,” the lawsuit (pdf) reads.
According to the White House, Biden’s Jan. 20 order is designed to “promote and protect our public health and the environment” as well as “conserve our national treasures and monuments.”
“Where the Federal Government has failed to meet that commitment in the past, it must advance environmental justice,” the order said. “In carrying out this charge, the federal government must be guided by the best science and be protected by processes that ensure the integrity of Federal decision-making. ”
The order directed all federal agencies and departments to review and “take action” to address the Trump administration’s climate-related executive orders.
The lawsuit was filed Monday in federal court in the Eastern District of Missouri.
