Month: June 2021

New York Will Put To-Go Cocktails on Ice


helena-lopes-a4z8GRkVSUM-unsplash

More than a dozen states have already decided to keep to-go cocktails legal even after the COVID-19 pandemic passes, but Saturday could be “last call” in New York—the state that pioneered the idea last spring.

When he required bars and restaurants to close on March 16, 2020, due to growing concern over the COVID-19 outbreak, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered a temporary easing of the state’s alcohol laws to allow beer, wine, and even mixed drinks to be ordered as to-go items from establishments across the state. That became a crucial lifeline for bars, and 38 other states (and Washington, D.C) ended up copying New York’s policy in one form or another. Despite so many missteps over the past year—a cover-up of how badly COVID-19 ravaged New York’s nursing homes, dumb mandates regarding how much food bars had to serve with their to-go drinks, that self-serving book deal, and more—allowing to-go booze was a rare absolute win for Cuomo (and his constituents).

No surprise, it also proved to be immensely popular. One poll conducted on behalf of the New York State Restaurant Association last month found that 78 percent of New Yorkers favored making to-go cocktails a permanent fixture.

But legislation to do that is being held up by special interests that think the old way was just fine. Liquor stores have been lobbying against the proposal, according to The Wall Street Journal, because they view it as a threat to their control over alcohol sales. Even after the legislation was amended to prevent bars and restaurants from selling full bottles of alcohol—a major objection raised by liquor store special interests—liquor store trade associations are still pushing hard to defeat the bill, the Albany Times-Union reports.

That political fight means that New York could soon return to the pre-pandemic status quo. Cuomo’s executive order allowing to-go alcohol will expire on June 5 and the state legislature is scheduled to break for the summer at the end of next week.

Many other states are taking steps to keep consumers’ options open. Fourteen states have already enacted laws making to-go cocktails permanently legal and another seven have moved to extend their legality on a temporary basis, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), which favors the passage of those laws. The latest to do so was Illinois, where Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill on Wednesday allowing restaurants to serve to-go cocktails through 2024.

If there’s one alcohol-related lesson that policy makers should take away from the pandemic, it is that giving Americans more booze freedom doesn’t create chaos. Where are the stories of city blocks that have been destroyed by the scourge of legal to-go cocktails?

It should now be more apparent than ever that restrictions on which establishments can sell what kinds of booze in various quantities—restrictions that vary widely from state to state but exist in some form or another almost everywhere—have little to do with protecting public health or safety. As the debate raging in Albany demonstrates, those rules are mostly political. They’re mostly aimed at protecting certain parts of the alcohol economy from unwanted competition.

To-go cocktails shouldn’t just be a pandemic fad. But they will be if politicians let special interests dominate the will of the people.

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New York Will Put To-Go Cocktails on Ice


helena-lopes-a4z8GRkVSUM-unsplash

More than a dozen states have already decided to keep to-go cocktails legal even after the COVID-19 pandemic passes, but Saturday could be “last call” in New York—the state that pioneered the idea last spring.

When he required bars and restaurants to close on March 16, 2020, due to growing concern over the COVID-19 outbreak, Gov. Andrew Cuomo ordered a temporary easing of the state’s alcohol laws to allow beer, wine, and even mixed drinks to be ordered as to-go items from establishments across the state. That became a crucial lifeline for bars, and 38 other states (and Washington, D.C) ended up copying New York’s policy in one form or another. Despite so many missteps over the past year—a cover-up of how badly COVID-19 ravaged New York’s nursing homes, dumb mandates regarding how much food bars had to serve with their to-go drinks, that self-serving book deal, and more—allowing to-go booze was a rare absolute win for Cuomo (and his constituents).

No surprise, it also proved to be immensely popular. One poll conducted on behalf of the New York State Restaurant Association last month found that 78 percent of New Yorkers favored making to-go cocktails a permanent fixture.

But legislation to do that is being held up by special interests that think the old way was just fine. Liquor stores have been lobbying against the proposal, according to The Wall Street Journal, because they view it as a threat to their control over alcohol sales. Even after the legislation was amended to prevent bars and restaurants from selling full bottles of alcohol—a major objection raised by liquor store special interests—liquor store trade associations are still pushing hard to defeat the bill, the Albany Times-Union reports.

That political fight means that New York could soon return to the pre-pandemic status quo. Cuomo’s executive order allowing to-go alcohol will expire on June 5 and the state legislature is scheduled to break for the summer at the end of next week.

Many other states are taking steps to keep consumers’ options open. Fourteen states have already enacted laws making to-go cocktails permanently legal and another seven have moved to extend their legality on a temporary basis, according to the Distilled Spirits Council of the United States (DISCUS), which favors the passage of those laws. The latest to do so was Illinois, where Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed a bill on Wednesday allowing restaurants to serve to-go cocktails through 2024.

If there’s one alcohol-related lesson that policy makers should take away from the pandemic, it is that giving Americans more booze freedom doesn’t create chaos. Where are the stories of city blocks that have been destroyed by the scourge of legal to-go cocktails?

It should now be more apparent than ever that restrictions on which establishments can sell what kinds of booze in various quantities—restrictions that vary widely from state to state but exist in some form or another almost everywhere—have little to do with protecting public health or safety. As the debate raging in Albany demonstrates, those rules are mostly political. They’re mostly aimed at protecting certain parts of the alcohol economy from unwanted competition.

To-go cocktails shouldn’t just be a pandemic fad. But they will be if politicians let special interests dominate the will of the people.

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Lagarde, Powell Clash Over Role Of Central Banks In Fighting Climate Change

Lagarde, Powell Clash Over Role Of Central Banks In Fighting Climate Change

While investors were distracted waiting for Friday’s jobs data out of the US, the FT’s Gillian Tett was mediating a group of the world’s most powerful central bankers – including the PBOC’s Yi Gang, ECB’s Christine Lagarde, BIS General Manager Agustin Carstens and François Villeroy de Galhau, the head of the Central Bank of France – who had gathered to discuss the role that central banks can play in combating climate change during the Bank of International Settlements’ “Green Swan” virtual conference.

Something interesting happened after Lagarde stepped up to assert that central banks have an obligation to do whatever they can to combat climate change under their mandate, which typically extends to maintaining stable prices and healthy labor markets.  But a few minutes later, she met unexpected resistance from the Fed’s Jerome Powell, who asserted that the Fed doesn’t have a role to play in setting climate policy, a role typically reserved for the federal government.

“We would be failing on our mandate if we did not account for climate change when it comes to understanding and measuring inflation,” Lagarde said. “If we do not see that climate change could impair monetary policy transmission. We would be failing on our mandate if we not measure the impact that climate change has on the assets that we hold, on the assets that we buy, and on the collateral that we have in stock…My hope is very much that we will have a broad consensus on the part of all members of the Governing Council that climate change has to be taken into account, has to be factored in throughout the whole range of our activities,” Lagarde said.

Before Powell was called on to speak, the PBOC’s Yi Gang briefly discussed the PBOC’s efforts to “encourage” environmentally conscious investing in China (which remains the world’s biggest polluter). 

Then Powell started by saying there was “no doubt” that climate change poses a serious threat “for all of us”. But “in the United States, our society’s overall response to climate change will have to come from elected officials.”

As for the role of central banks, “it will vary across countries…but at the Fed we see our role as an important one that is tied closely to our existing mandates. While we don’t have a secondary mandate to support the overall economic policy of the government…”

“We’re undertaking a broad plan of careful analysis, significant public engagement, and great transparency with regard to our role in addressing climate-related financial risks. You asked about monetary policy, well there’s no question that climate change…can effect the outlook for the economy, can affect monetary policy…but I would say that today climate change is not something we consider when setting monetary policy. We are exploring what climate change’s implications are for our supervisory, regulatory and financial stability regulatory facilities,” Powell said.

Tett responded by doubling down, asking Powell “you don’t think you have a mandate to act as a cheerleader…” for policy choices that the private sector can use to fight climate change?

Yet, Powell insisted “we are not, and we do not seek to be, climate policy makers as such. We have a very specific mandate, and precious independence…which has served the public well…that’s not up to us...but nonetheless I do think our work can indirectly educate the public and also I would think inform other parts of the government in the actions they are assigned to assess.”

The clash is notable in that the world doesn’t often see the ECB and the Fed, which have longstanding ties, disagree in such a public manner, even if it is only over a technicality. It’s worth noting that in recent months, the Fed has taken a more active role in climate change oversight with the creation of two internal committees aimed at exploring the issue and by joining the global Network for Greening the Financial System. Though all of this is consistent with what Powell said about the Fed exploring how climate change might impact the Fed’s regulatory duties.

Of course, if the Fed changes its mind and decides that it is, in fact, obligated to engineer monetary policy with an eye toward supporting Biden’s “green agenda”, he could simply hike interest rates, which would hammer the coal industry.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/04/2021 – 11:39

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/3fPbMv7 Tyler Durden

Former CDC Chief: I Didn’t Expect Death Threats From Fellow Scientists Over Lab-Leak Theory

Former CDC Chief: I Didn’t Expect Death Threats From Fellow Scientists Over Lab-Leak Theory

Authored by Ed Morrissey via Hot Air (emphasis ours),

Alternate headline: No one expects the Woke Scientistic Inquisition! Vanity Fair does an extensive and impressive dive into the strange but pervasive attempts by the scientific, media, and government establishments to quash any discussion of the lab-leak hypothesis for COVID-19’s origin.

AP Photo/Alex Brandon

It got so bad that former CDC director Robert Redfield got death threats for suggesting it publicly — from other scientists:

A months long Vanity Fair investigation, interviews with more than 40 people, and a review of hundreds of pages of U.S. government documents, including internal memos, meeting minutes, and email correspondence, found that conflicts of interest, stemming in part from large government grants supporting controversial virology research, hampered the U.S. investigation into COVID-19’s origin at every step. In one State Department meeting, officials seeking to demand transparency from the Chinese government say they were explicitly told by colleagues not to explore the Wuhan Institute of Virology’s gain-of-function research, because it would bring unwelcome attention to U.S. government funding of it.

In an internal memo obtained by Vanity Fair, Thomas DiNanno, former acting assistant secretary of the State Department’s Bureau of Arms Control, Verification, and Compliance, wrote that staff from two bureaus, his own and the Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, “warned” leaders within his bureau “not to pursue an investigation into the origin of COVID-19” because it would “‘open a can of worms’ if it continued.” …

But for most of the past year, the lab-leak scenario was treated not simply as unlikely or even inaccurate but as morally out-of-bounds. In late March, former Centers for Disease Control director Robert Redfield received death threats from fellow scientists after telling CNN that he believed COVID-19 had originated in a lab. “I was threatened and ostracized because I proposed another hypothesis,” Redfield told Vanity Fair. “I expected it from politicians. I didn’t expect it from science.”

With President Trump out of office, it should be possible to reject his xenophobic agenda and still ask why, in all places in the world, did the outbreak begin in the city with a laboratory housing one of the world’s most extensive collection of bat viruses, doing some of the most aggressive research?

News flash: It was possible all along to reject Trump’s “xenophobic agenda” and still ask that question. Many did, only to get calumnized by media outlets as conspiracy theorists, racists, or both.

It’s not as if the CNN interview took place in the early days of the pandemic, either. Redfield expressed his skepticism of the zoonotic-transfer hypothesis in March 2021, just over two months ago. Four days later, WHO secretary-general Tedros Ghebreyesus would also suggest that the lab-leak hypothesis needed serious investigation, which no doubt took some of the pressure off Redfield. Those threats and calumny over what should be a basic scientific inquiry speaks volumes about the coordinated effort to impose political correctness or just flat-out pandering to China over science.

Now that the spell has been broken, suddenly everyone seems interested in why China’s blocked that scientific inquiry from taking place in any serious manner. The Washington Post, for instance, informs its readers today that China has balked at allowing independent investigation and open discussion of its viral research and the operations at the Wuhan Institute of Virology:

Nothing is known outside China about the science gleaned from that expedition by the Wuhan CDC — the same agency that oversaw China’s early pandemic response. The team has not disclosed what viruses, if any, it found in the cave, or even when the mission took place. According to a World Health Organization report released in March, the Wuhan CDC denied any storage or laboratory activities involving bat viruses before the coronavirus outbreak — a stance hard to reconcile with Tian’s boasts in the video about having visited dozens of bat caves and studied 300 types of virus vectors.

Tian has not spoken publicly for more than a year.

The silencing of scientists, the blanket denials, the careful guarding of raw data and biological samples — these elements have been emblematic of the approach by Chinese authorities at every stage of the coronavirus outbreak. And they continue to obstruct the world’s ability to get answers.

Those three paragraphs, and especially the last one, could have been written at any time over the last eighteen months. And this certainly could have been written at the time Redfield expressed his interest in the lab-leak theory:

Chinese authorities weren’t much more receptive of the international team commissioned by the WHO. Negotiations over the arrangements delayed the team from getting to Wuhan until more than a year after doctors first raised concerns there. Once on the ground, the international experts were given limited access. They visited the market linked to early coronavirus cases — but it had been shut for a year and its contents long ago removed. Their visit to the Wuhan Institute of Virology lasted three hours. In general, they had to satisfy themselves with data that was in large part collected by Chinese scientists before the trip.

The result was a report that didn’t significantly advance the world’s understanding of how the pandemic came about.

This was painfully clear all during this supposed independent probe by WHO. Certainly some media reported on China’s refusal to cooperate properly with the investigators. Until Ghebreyesus admitted as much at the end of March, however, most of the media insisted that all other theories except zoonotic transfer had been “debunked,” to use the WaPo’s term. They continued to attack those who demanded a proper investigation into COVID-19 origins, and never bothered to ask themselves why China was blocking investigations if they didn’t have anything to hide.

Isn’t that the kind of question that usually incentivizes journalists into investigating on their own? Not to mention scientists?

As it turns out, the latter might have some serious conflicts of interest. The Lancet played an early role in making zoonotic transfer not just a leading theory but the only acceptable explanation for public discussion. Guess where that effort originated:

Then came the revelation that the Lancet statement was not only signed but organized by a zoologist named Peter Daszak, who has repackaged U.S. government grants and allocated them to facilities conducting gain-of-function research—among them the WIV itself. David Asher, now a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, ran the State Department’s day-to-day COVID-19 origins inquiry. He said it soon became clear that “there is a huge gain-of-function bureaucracy” inside the federal government.

The scientific community didn’t “follow the science.” They followed the money. We need an independent investigation into how that happened too, along with real answers as to just how COVID-19 originated, and whether Wuhan Institute of Virology is brewing up any more pandemics.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/04/2021 – 11:19

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Who’s Hiring And Who’s Firing In May: A Third Of All Jobs Were Waiters And Bartenders

Who’s Hiring And Who’s Firing In May: A Third Of All Jobs Were Waiters And Bartenders

Another month, another bonanza for waiters and bartenders.

One month after we reported that the dismal April jobs report was nonetheless “A Golden Age For Waiters And Card Dealers“, the Obama-era “job market” gain are back with a vengeance, and of the subpar 559K jobs added in May which was another miss to expectations of 674K – as a reminder, we need to be adding at least 1 million jobs every month to recover to pre-pandemic level…

… a third of all new jobs created in May were waiters and bartenders.

It wasn’t just waiters and bartenders: of the 292K leisure and hospitality jobs added (of which food service and drinking place is the main member), the Us also added another 71.7K jobs in “arts, entertainment and recreation” and another 57.9K jobs in “amusements, gambling and recreation.”

The rest of the job market was somewhat subdued: here is a breakdown of the 559K jobs added in April:

  • Employment in leisure and hospitality increased by 292,000, as pandemic-related restrictions continued to ease in some parts of the country. Nearly two-thirds of the increase was in food services and drinking places (+186,000). Employment also rose in amusements, gambling, and recreation (+58,000) and in accommodation (+35,000). Employment in leisure and hospitality is down by 2.5 million, or 15.0 percent, from its level in February 2020.
  • Employment increased in public and private education, reflecting the continued resumption of in-person learning and other school-related activities in some parts of the country. Employment rose by 53,000 in local government education, by 50,000 in state government education, and by 41,000 in private education. However, employment is down from February 2020 levels in local government education (-556,000), state government education (-244,000), and private education (-293,000).
  • Health care and social assistance added 46,000 jobs in May. Employment in health care continued to trend up (+23,000), reflecting a gain in ambulatory health care services (+22,000). Social assistance added 23,000 jobs over the month, largely in child day care services (+18,000). Compared with February 2020, employment is down by 508,000 in health care and by 257,000 in social assistance.
  • Employment in information rose by 29,000 over the month but is down by 193,000 since February 2020. In May, job gains occurred in motion picture and sound recording industries (+14,000).
  • Manufacturing employment rose by 23,000 in May. A job gain in motor vehicles and parts (+25,000) followed a loss in April (-38,000). Employment in manufacturing is down by 509,000 from its level in February 2020.
  • Transportation and warehousing added 23,000 jobs in May. Employment increased in support activities for transportation (+10,000) and in air transportation (+9,000). Since February 2020, employment in transportation and warehousing is down by 100,000.
  • Employment in wholesale trade increased by 20,000 in May, mostly in the durable goods component (+14,000). Employment in wholesale trade is down by 211,000 since February 2020.
  • Construction employment edged down in May (-20,000), reflecting a job loss in nonresidential specialty trade contractors (-17,000). Employment in construction is 225,000 lower than in February 2020.
  • Employment in professional and business services changed little in May (+35,000). Within the industry, employment continued to trend up in accounting and bookkeeping services (+14,000). Employment in temporary help services changed little over the month (+4,000), following a large decline in April (-116,000). Overall, employment in professional and business services is down by 708,000 since February 2020.
  • Employment in retail trade changed little in May (-6,000). Clothing and clothing accessories stores added 11,000 jobs. Employment in food and beverage stores decreased by 26,000, following a decline of 47,000 in April. Employment in retail trade is 411,000 below its February 2020 level.

And visually:

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/04/2021 – 11:05

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United Airlines Wants To Bring Back Supersonic Air Travel. Will the FAA Let It?


reason-boom2

Interest in the return of commercial supersonic air travel is booming. But will the technology be able to break through the regulatory barriers that stand in its way?

On Thursday, United Airlines announced its intention to purchase 15 supersonic Overture jets from Denver-based aerospace startup Boom Supersonic. The hope is for these 65–88-person airliners—which have yet to be built, let alone tested—to be ferrying passengers across oceanic routes by 2029, according to a joint press release put out by the two companies.

“At speeds twice as fast, United passengers will experience all the advantages of life lived in person, from deeper, more productive business relationships to longer, more relaxing vacations to far-off destinations,” said Boom CEO Blake Scholl.

On its website, Boom says a trip from San Francisco to Tokyo on its Overture jet will take six hours, instead of the current journey of just over 10.

Faster-than-sound travel isn’t a new technology. Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947. But commercial airline passengers have been stuck at subsonic speeds ever since the supersonic Concorde plane was taken out of service in 2003.

A fatal crash in 2000 and its noisy, fuel-hungry engines helped do that airliner in. Not helping its chances of success was a 1973-issued Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulation banning supersonic flights over land, meaning it could only offer transatlantic flights.

Since the Concorde’s retirement, there have been a number of economic and technological developments that make profitable supersonic travel more feasible, says Eli Dourado, a senior research fellow at Utah State University’s Center for Growth and Opportunity (and former global policy chief for Boom).

“On a technological level there is no reason that an aircraft could not be much, much better than what Concorde was able to achieve,” Dourado tells Reason.

Improved materials are one reason, he says. The aluminum that the Concorde was built with would expand thanks to the high heat of supersonic travel, creating additional drag and introducing a complicated engineering problem of keeping its nonexpanding cabin airtight. Newer carbon fiber materials are more thermally stable and easier to shape into the curves needed for supersonic flight.

Advances in software have also enabled engineers to test new designs much more rapidly.

“When Concorde was developed, they basically did it with pencil and paper. They did it with slide rules and drafting tables,” says Dourado, meaning it would take months to test new designs. Today’s computer simulations allow you to “test thousands of designs over the life of an aircraft program, instead of ten or so that Concorde was able to do.”

Lastly, 50 years of advances in lighter, fuel-efficient engines also make supersonic flight cheaper and thus more commercially viable. The rapid growth in the market for premium transatlantic flights also improves the economics of the industry.

Coupled with these technological changes are a few more marginal updates to federal supersonic regulations.

In January 2021, the FAA finalized new rules making it easier for companies to get permission to conduct supersonic test flights over land. It’s also currently in the process of crafting new noise standards for supersonic aircraft during takeoffs and landings.

Both those regulatory changes were required by a reauthorization of the FAA that Congress passed in 2018. That law also directs the agency to review its existing ban on routine supersonic flights once every two years.

One shouldn’t expect revocation of that rule in the near future, however. Before the FAA can ditch that prohibition, the National Environmental Policy Act requires it to first perform a review of the environmental impacts (including noise effects) of supersonic flight.

That, in turn, requires data on those noise effects that the FAA doesn’t currently have. A NASA program to conduct test flights of “quiet” supersonic aircraft over communities is supposed to provide the information the FAA will need to conduct its environmental review, but the completion of that program is still years away.

“It is good that the FAA has been easing its very strict prohibitions on even testing overland [flights],” says Marc Scribner, a senior transportation policy analyst at Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website.

That gives United and Boom the breathing room they need to test their new technology and potentially put it into service over oceanic routes where supersonic flight is still allowed.

Should that prove successful, it’ll hopefully pave the way for broader legalization of supersonic flight across the U.S. as well. “Before you have an actual, in-service aircraft it’s going to be difficult for regulators, the public, and politicians to get fully behind overland supersonic,” says Scribner.

At the same time, he cautions that traditional “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) complaints about aircraft noise as well as environmental concerns about the emissions from air travel could lead to additional barriers for the industry.

“I think that’s why you saw in the United announcement, that [its supersonic jets] would be fueled by 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel,” he says. “That was in part trying to get out ahead of objections or concerns we’ve heard expressed from some environmental groups about these technologies.”

Boom’s plan is to start test flights of its Overture planes by 2026.

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United Airlines Orders $3 Billion Worth Of Supersonic Airplanes  

United Airlines Orders $3 Billion Worth Of Supersonic Airplanes  

United Airlines, Inc. is flying into the world of supersonic travel and has announced a commercial agreement with Denver-based aerospace company Boom Supersonic to add 15 supersonic passenger jets with the option to purchase 35 at a later date. 

At $200 million a pop, the deal is valued at more than $3 billion. Both companies will work together to ensure commercial operations of the plane, called “Overture,” are ready by 2029. 

“The companies will work together on meeting those requirements before delivery. Once operational, Overture is expected to be the first large commercial aircraft to be net-zero carbon from day one, optimized to run on 100% sustainable aviation fuel (SAF). It is slated to roll out in 2025, fly in 2026 and expected to carry passengers by 2029. United and Boom will also work together to accelerate production of greater supplies of SAF,” read a United Airlines press release. 

United said the planes are capable of Mach 1.7, nearly twice the speed of the fastest airliners. It will travel from Newark to London in just three and a half hours, Newark to Frankfurt in four hours, and San Francisco to Tokyo in just six hours. 

Overture resembles the same shape of an Aerospatiale/BAC Concorde. 

“The world’s first purchase agreement for net-zero carbon supersonic aircraft marks a significant step toward our mission to create a more accessible world,” said Blake Scholl, Boom Supersonic founder and CEO

“United and Boom share a common purpose—to unite the world safely and sustainably. At speeds twice as fast, United passengers will experience all the advantages of life lived in person, from deeper, more productive business relationships to longer, more relaxing vacations to far-off destinations,” Scholl said. 

While supersonic flight is forbidden over the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) published new regulations earlier this year to reintroduce civil supersonic flight. 

Boom is trying to revitalize supersonic flight since the Concorde crash in June 2003 – Air France and British Airways have since retired their supersonic jet fleets. 

Still, it remains to be seen whether Boom’s plan can get off the ground. The first demonstrator jet called the XB-1 is slated for flight sometime this year. 

Boom’s story of “sustainable” and “carbon-zero” supersonic flight could become a great SPAC or meme stock story. Heck, they even have 15 “orders.” 

Paging, venture capital investor Chamath Palihapitiya… 

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/04/2021 – 10:42

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/34Mp8lB Tyler Durden

United Airlines Wants To Bring Back Supersonic Air Travel. Will the FAA Let It?


reason-boom2

Interest in the return of commercial supersonic air travel is booming. But will the technology be able to break through the regulatory barriers that stand in its way?

On Thursday, United Airlines announced its intention to purchase 15 supersonic Overture jets from Denver-based aerospace startup Boom Supersonic. The hope is for these 65–88-person airliners—which have yet to be built, let alone tested—to be ferrying passengers across oceanic routes by 2029, according to a joint press release put out by the two companies.

“At speeds twice as fast, United passengers will experience all the advantages of life lived in person, from deeper, more productive business relationships to longer, more relaxing vacations to far-off destinations,” said Boom CEO Blake Scholl.

On its website, Boom says a trip from San Francisco to Tokyo on its Overture jet will take six hours, instead of the current journey of just over 10.

Faster-than-sound travel isn’t a new technology. Chuck Yeager broke the sound barrier in 1947. But commercial airline passengers have been stuck at subsonic speeds ever since the supersonic Concorde plane was taken out of service in 2003.

A fatal crash in 2000 and its noisy, fuel-hungry engines helped do that airliner in. Not helping its chances of success was a 1973-issued Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulation banning supersonic flights over land, meaning it could only offer transatlantic flights.

Since the Concorde’s retirement, there have been a number of economic and technological developments that make profitable supersonic travel more feasible, says Eli Dourado, a senior research fellow at Utah State University’s Center for Growth and Opportunity (and former global policy chief for Boom).

“On a technological level there is no reason that an aircraft could not be much, much better than what Concorde was able to achieve,” Dourado tells Reason.

Improved materials are one reason, he says. The aluminum that the Concorde was built with would expand thanks to the high heat of supersonic travel, creating additional drag and introducing a complicated engineering problem of keeping its nonexpanding cabin airtight. Newer carbon fiber materials are more thermally stable and easier to shape into the curves needed for supersonic flight.

Advances in software have also enabled engineers to test new designs much more rapidly.

“When Concorde was developed, they basically did it with pencil and paper. They did it with slide rules and drafting tables,” says Dourado, meaning it would take months to test new designs. Today’s computer simulations allow you to “test thousands of designs over the life of an aircraft program, instead of ten or so that Concorde was able to do.”

Lastly, 50 years of advances in lighter, fuel-efficient engines also make supersonic flight cheaper and thus more commercially viable. The rapid growth in the market for premium transatlantic flights also improves the economics of the industry.

Coupled with these technological changes are a few more marginal updates to federal supersonic regulations.

In January 2021, the FAA finalized new rules making it easier for companies to get permission to conduct supersonic test flights over land. It’s also currently in the process of crafting new noise standards for supersonic aircraft during takeoffs and landings.

Both those regulatory changes were required by a reauthorization of the FAA that Congress passed in 2018. That law also directs the agency to review its existing ban on routine supersonic flights once every two years.

One shouldn’t expect revocation of that rule in the near future, however. Before the FAA can ditch that prohibition, the National Environmental Policy Act requires it to first perform a review of the environmental impacts (including noise effects) of supersonic flight.

That, in turn, requires data on those noise effects that the FAA doesn’t currently have. A NASA program to conduct test flights of “quiet” supersonic aircraft over communities is supposed to provide the information the FAA will need to conduct its environmental review, but the completion of that program is still years away.

“It is good that the FAA has been easing its very strict prohibitions on even testing overland [flights],” says Marc Scribner, a senior transportation policy analyst at Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes this website.

That gives United and Boom the breathing room they need to test their new technology and potentially put it into service over oceanic routes where supersonic flight is still allowed.

Should that prove successful, it’ll hopefully pave the way for broader legalization of supersonic flight across the U.S. as well. “Before you have an actual, in-service aircraft it’s going to be difficult for regulators, the public, and politicians to get fully behind overland supersonic,” says Scribner.

At the same time, he cautions that traditional “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) complaints about aircraft noise as well as environmental concerns about the emissions from air travel could lead to additional barriers for the industry.

“I think that’s why you saw in the United announcement, that [its supersonic jets] would be fueled by 100 percent sustainable aviation fuel,” he says. “That was in part trying to get out ahead of objections or concerns we’ve heard expressed from some environmental groups about these technologies.”

Boom’s plan is to start test flights of its Overture planes by 2026.

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San Francisco Police Department Seeks Help To Solve Crime But Blurs Face Of Suspect

San Francisco Police Department Seeks Help To Solve Crime But Blurs Face Of Suspect

Authored by Jonathan Turley,

This could make for an interesting line up.

The San Francisco police posted a videotape of a man lighting the hair of a woman on fire on a bus.  They were seeking the help of witnesses but bizarrely blurred out the face of the suspect.

When confronted on the curious effort, the police insisted that it was just trying to get people to recognize the victim. Huh?

The young man is shown in the videotape casually moving over to sit behind the woman and then puts a lighter to the back of her head. She was helped by other passengers as the suspect and two friends ran off of the bus.  She obviously could have been severely burned or even killed in such an attack if the fire spread.

This is what the police posted:

Police spokesperson Adam Lobsinger later explained that they were trying to find the victim because “without the victim, when we catch the suspects, it’s harder to do anything,. We are still looking for the suspects.”

That is a bit hard to follow. One would think that they are trying to find both the victim and the culprit.  The latter is particularly important since he is out in the public after lighting the hair of a woman on fire. Regardless of the eventual prosecution, you should want the public’s assistance in finding this maniac and getting him off the street. You can actually show both faces and achieve both purposes. Moreover, you have a videotape to help with any prosecution regardless of the victim.  The police also have the driver as a witness.

I just cannot track the logic on this one.

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/04/2021 – 10:20

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Watch Live: President Biden Explain Why A Second Disappointing Jobs Month Means His Policies Are Working

Watch Live: President Biden Explain Why A Second Disappointing Jobs Month Means His Policies Are Working

With the gap between job openings and those on pandemic emergency unemployment benefits at a record high…

And a resurgence in women’s jobs this month (wrecking the admin’s narrative that the epidemic of ‘help wanted’ signs is because “moms stuck at home with no daycare”)…

And the plunge in black and asian unemployment (so don’t blame “inequality”)…

We look forward to hearing President Biden explain how the dismal jobs print means “his policies are working” and all is well in the recovery…

We are just guessing here but does anyone else think the president will use this opportunity to push for an even bigger “infrastructure” bill because [enters ‘whisper-mode’] “it’s the fair thing to do America.”

Watch Live (due to start at 1015ET):

Tyler Durden
Fri, 06/04/2021 – 10:10

via ZeroHedge News https://ift.tt/2T1TvCc Tyler Durden