SIT officials serving notice to BJP Chief Bandi Sanjay on Saturday in city.
Hyderabad: The sleuths of the Special Investigation Team (SIT) investigating the TSPSC paper leakage case on Saturday served fresh notice to Telangana State BJP Chief Bandi Sanjay at his Banjara Hills residence.
Although SIT served notice to him seeking his appearance on March 24 before the investigating agency, Bandi Sanjay feigned ignorance and denied receiving any notice.
The SIT took cognizance of Sanjay’s statement alleging that several leaders of the ruling Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) are involved in the TSPSC exam paper leak that took place over a week ago. He said after obtaining question papers for the TSPSC exams, relatives of chief minister K Chandrashekhar Rao (KCR) managed to get government posts.
In the fresh notice which has been served under CRPC section 91, the SIT has sought Bandi Sanjay’s appearance on March 26 at Himayat Nagar office.
Hyderabad: With Enforcement Directorate (ED) grilling Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekhar Rao’s daughter K Kavitha in connection with the Delhi excise policy case, Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) MLA Danam Nagender lashed out at Centre saying the BRS will teach Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) a lesson at the appropriate time.
Speaking to ANI, Nagender said, “This is a clear-cut issue. The people are well aware of the vindictive activities of the BJP government. ED is acting as the mouthpiece of the BJP and central government. This is very unfair. She (Kavitha) categorically said yesterday that she is not involved in any of this and she is in no way connected with this liquor business.”
“If someone X, Y or Z mentioned her name, they (ED) cannot take it as a conspiracy. The important thing is that each time she has been requesting the ED to mention a certain time limit. In spite of it, even yesterday she came out around 10 pm. No one will spare (BJP) when a woman is being tortured like this. The BRS party will not step back and we are ready to face any consequences. We will definitely teach BJP a lesson at the appropriate time,” he added.
The ED on Tuesday questioned BRS MLC K Kavitha for over 10 hours in the national capital regarding her alleged role in the Delhi liquor policy case. It was the third day that Kavitha was questioned by the federal agency.
Kavitha said she submitted all the phones she has used so far as she went for the third round of questioning in the Delhi excise policy-linked money laundering case at the ED office in the national capital.
On Monday, Kavitha appeared before ED after the federal agency on March 16, issued a fresh summon to the BRS leader to join its ongoing investigation in the case.
The federal agency issued the fresh summons as Kavitha refused to attend the ED interrogation on Thursday citing a pending petition in the Supreme Court.
Kavitha did not appear for questioning conveying to the probe agency that the matter is still pending before the apex court.
According to sources, Kavitha has sent the necessary documents sought by the probe agency through her legal representative.
The ED had summoned her earlier this month to appear before it on Thursday in the Delhi excise scam, alleging that she was a key member of the south cartel.
The BRS leader had approached the Supreme Court for an urgent hearing claiming that as a woman, she cannot be summoned to the ED office, and the probe agency’s representatives must visit her instead.
On Wednesday the Supreme Court had agreed to hear her plea challenging the ED summons on March 24 but refused to grant her interim relief.
Over the course of its investigation, the ED has come to know that Hyderabad-based businessman Arun Ramchandra Pillai is one of the key persons in the alleged scam involving payments of huge kickbacks and the formation of the biggest cartel of the South Group.
South Group comprises Telangana MLC Kavitha, Sarath Reddy (promoter of Aurobindo Group), Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy (MP, Ongole), his son Raghav Magunta, and others. The South Group was being represented by Pillai, Abhishek Boinpalli and Butchi Babu, the federal agency investigation has revealed.
Pillai along with his associates was coordinating with various persons to execute the political understanding between the South Group and a leader of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) Pillai has been an accomplice and was involved in the kickbacks from the South Group and the recoupment of the same from the businesses in Delhi, ED investigation revealed.
The ED had earlier said that the South Group gave kickbacks of Rs 100 crore to AAP leaders.
Pillai is learnt to be a partner of 32.5 per cent in Indo Spirits, which had got an L1 licence. Indo Spirits is a partnership firm of Arun (32.5 per cent), Prem Rahul (32.5 per cent) and Indospirit Distribution Limited (35 per cent), wherein Arun and Prem Rahul represented the benami investments of Kavitha and Magunta Srinivasulu Reddy and his son Raghava Magunta.
Pillai is a partner in Indo Spirits. In this partnership firm, Pillai represented the interests of Kavitha.
Kavitha, who is a member of the Telangana Legislative Council, was questioned by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in the same case in December last year.
ED, last year filed its first chargesheet in the case. The agency said it has so far undertaken nearly 200 search operations in this case after filing FIR after taking cognisance of a CBI case which was registered on the recommendation of the Delhi lieutenant governor.
The CBI inquiry was recommended on the findings of the Delhi chief secretary’s report filed in July showing prima facie violations of the GNCTD Act 1991, Transaction of Business Rules (ToBR)-1993, Delhi Excise Act-2009, and Delhi Excise Rules-2010, officials had said.
In October, the ED had raided nearly three dozen locations in Delhi and Punjab following the arrest of Sameer Mahendru, Managing Director of Delhi’s Jor Bagh-based liquor distributor Indospirit Group, in the case and arrested him later. The CBI too filed its first charge sheet in the case early this week.
The ED and the CBI had alleged that irregularities were committed while modifying the Excise Policy, undue favours were extended to licence holders, the licence fee was waived or reduced and the L-1 licence was extended without the competent authority’s approval. The beneficiaries diverted “illegal” gains to the accused officials and made false entries in their books of account to evade detection.
As per the allegations, the Excise Department had decided to refund the Earnest Money Deposit of about Rs 30 crore to a successful tenderer against the set rules. Even though there was no enabling provision, a waiver on tendered licence fees was allowed from December 28, 2021, to January 27, 2022, due to Covid-19.
This allegedly caused a loss of Rs 144.36 crore to the exchequer, which has been instituted on a reference from the Union Home Ministry following a recommendation from Delhi Lieutenant-Governor Vinai Kumar Saxena.
Bhubaneswar: The charge sheet in the murder of minister Naba Kishore Das will be filed within prescribed time frame, Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik told the Odisha Assembly on Tuesday.
Replying to the discussion on demand of grants for the Home and General Administration Departments, he said: “The investigation is still under progress and within the time frame given by law for filing of charge sheet, the same would be done.”
Noting that except himself, no police officer or any other authority has made any statement or briefed anyone including the media on the sensitive murder case so far, he asked: “Where did the opposition find this point about the government saying that the accused person is mad or the government trying to show that the accused person is mad?”
Alleging the opposition is lying for narrow political gains, Patnaik said his government has always stood for justice.
“In this particular case, we have two objectives. Unveil the truth behind this murder and to ensure conviction of those involved,” he said.
Patnaik further said the police followed all scientific procedures involving professional agencies, including those from other states and the Central government for investigation of the case.
He said that the entire investigation is being monitored by a retired High Court judge appointed by the Orissa High Court itself, but even then, the opposition is accusing the government of hiding something in the investigation. This is deplorable and smacks of political opportunism, he said.
“I assure the people of my state that in all the sensational cases alleged by the opposition, justice will be done and the culprits will be convicted and when that happens people will judge the narrow political mindset of the opposition,” Patnaik said.
On the allegation made by the opposition that the law and order situation in the state is precarious, Patnaik said: “Getting investment to a state is a reflection of the law and order situation in the state. No investment comes when the law and order situation is poor in a state. Odisha gets one of the highest investments in the country.”
Similarly, good growth in industrial production and agriculture production, transport and major logistical movements is also an indicator of law and order situation, he added.
“Our railways make one of the highest profits in the country and there is absolutely no problem in the transport situation in the state,” Patnaik pointed out.
Besides, the state has not faced any dislocation in conduct of major events like the Hockey World Cup, Ratha Yatra, elections and examinations because of law and order situation, he said.
Specific issues like communal harmony, left-wing, extremism or labour related issues – Odisha has been the best in handling all these issues, he added.
Stating growth and revenue generation are directly proportional to the law and order situation of the state, Patnaik said: “We record highest growth rates on a continuous basis and our revenue generation is increasing year after year. So, when the opposition talks about lawlessness they should keep these facts in mind.”
Noida: Two delivery agents were killed in separate accidents while they were on duty on Holi. Both the deceased were hit by cars as they raced against the clock to avoid penalties and deliver the orders in time.
According to the police, one of the deceased, identified as Bunty worked as a delivery boy in Noida. He was on his way to deliver an order when an unidentified car driver hit his scooty in Sector-112 of Noida on March 8.
He was admitted to a local hospital, where he succumbed to his injuries during treatment.
In the second incident, Deepak, who worked as a delivery agent in Big Basket, met with an accident while he was on his way to deliver an order near Lotus Boulevard society here, at around 3 p.m. on the same day.
Deepak was hit by a car and was admitted to a government hospital in Nithari where he passed away during treatment.
Sector-39 police station in-charge Ajay Chehar, said that the police sent his body for postmortem and arrested the car driver.
The increase in such accidents points towards the tough competition in the field and the increasing pressure faced by the agents to deliver the orders on time.
Many Apps have fixed time durations for the delivery agents, who, in the course of adhering to it, risk their lives on the roads.
Police officials said that such accidents have increased due to the pressure faced by the agents to deliver the order within the stipulated time limit. Pressurised by the companies, the agents resort to violating traffic rules and over-speeding to achieve the target.
Police officials said that the extra weight that the agents carry also becomes a factor leading to accidents as their vehicles lose balance.
Bal Govind Mishra, who works as a delivery partner in a food App based company, said that he picked up an order from a restaurant on March 15, after which he was informed of a health emergency at his home.
Mishra said that he frantically reached his home and dialled the customer care service of the company, asking them to assign the delivery to another agent, which was denied.
He alleged that he was warned of being fined if he failed to deliver the order. Upon refusal, the company imposed a fine of double the amount of money involved.
He stated that he has appealed in the Labour Court regarding the matter.
Talking to IANS, Mishra said that the company earns around Rs 500 if a delivery agent logs in for 10 hours, out of which the latter is paid Rs 200.
He added that when the log-in time is of 15-16 hours, the company earns around Rs 750 and pays Rs 350 to the agent.
He said that many a times restaurant workers trick the agents by falsely sending a notification of the order being ready on the food delivery App, but when an agent reaches there, they end up waiting for long intervals.
He said that only a notice is issued by the App to the concerned restaurant in this regard.
Mishra added that in the current scenario, delivery agents’ work carries great pressure and gets really difficult and tiring.
Washington: Time is running out for laid-off H-1B professionals as under the existing laws they need to leave the country within 60 days of losing their employment status, giving sleepless nights to the thousands of Indian tech workers and their family members.
“This has a humanitarian impact on them as their families, including their US-born children are uprooted abruptly, and those who were laid off in the earlier months are now running out of time,” the Foundation For India and Indian Diaspora Studies (FIIDS), which took up their cases with lawmakers and federal administration said in a statement on Friday.
While the US Citizenship and Immigration Services is considering their request to extend the existing time window to 180 days, the process is likely to take up some time, leaving no other option for these professionals other than to leave the country.
“FIIDS appeals to the USCIS, and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to consider a request to expedite the extension of grace period. FIIDS also appeals to the elected officials, tech executives, and community leaders to emphasise the need and urgency to increase the grace period,” the foundation said in a media statement.
Since last year, more than 2,50,000 such professionals have been laid off in the United States. This number continues to grow with companies like Meta announcing another set of tens of thousands of layoffs, FIIDS said.
“A large number of these professionals are tax paying H-1B immigrants (estimated 1,00,000), particularly from India, who need to leave the US if they cannot find another employer filing for their H-1B in 60 days,” it said.
Early this week, President’s Advisory Commission on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders, recommended the federal government to extend the grace period for H1-B workers, who have lost their jobs, from the existing 60 days to 180 days so that the workers have enough opportunities to find a new job or other alternatives.
It is now up to the White House to accept the recommendations. However, it would be too late for the current H-1B visa holders who have lost their jobs since last October.
FIIDS, in its statement, thanked Senate majority leader Senator Chuck Schumer that this issue can be fixed by an administrative process in his discussion with Indian American leaders on a recent call on March 13. It applauded the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders (WHIAANHPI) for the discussion and support for this extension in their meeting on March 14.
“We also appealed to the House Subcommittee on Immigration headed by congresswoman Pramila Jayapal to make a similar recommendation to the USCIS,” it said.
As spring approaches, U.S. officials are increasingly concerned about Ukraine’s dwindling supply of ammunition, air defenses and experienced soldiers. Moscow and Kyiv are continuing to throw bodies into the fight for a southeastern city the U.S. does not consider strategically important. But the Pentagon says that regardless of Kyiv’s battlefield strategy, the U.S. wants Ukraine’s soldiers to have the weapons they need to keep fighting.
Russia has spent months pummeling the country with missiles, seeking not only to cause destruction but also deplete Ukraine’s air defense stocks. Ukrainian soldiers have described acute shortages of basic ammunition, including mortar rounds and artillery shells. And upwards of 100,000 Ukrainian forces have died in the year-long war, U.S. officials estimate, including the most experienced soldiers.
Many of these losses are taking place in Bakhmut, where both sides are suffering massive casualties. Led by soldiers from the mercenary Wagner Group, Russia has laid siege to the southeastern city for nine months, reducing it to ruins. Ukrainian forces have refused to yield, with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy insisting that defending Bakhmut is key to holding other eastern cities.
“The Russians clearly are wanting to press forward to the boundaries of Donetsk all of the way to the west, and to do that they need to get hold of Bakhmut and the road network that goes past it,” said Dara Massicot, senior policy researcher at the RAND Institute.
But Austin recently told reporters that Bakhmut is “more of a symbolic value than it is strategic and operational value.”
Instead, U.S. officials are more focused on getting Ukraine ready for a major spring offensive to retake territory, which they expect to begin by May. Hundreds of Western tanks and armored vehicles, including for the first time eight armored vehicles that can launch bridges and allow troops to cross rivers, are en route to Ukraine for the offensive. The U.S. and European partners are also flowing massive amounts of ammunition and 155mm shells, which Ukraine has identified as its most urgent need.
U.S. aid packages “going back four or five months have been geared toward what Ukraine needs for this counteroffensive,” said one U.S. official, who was granted anonymity due to the administration’s ground rules.
While U.S. officials are careful not to appear to tell Kyiv how to fight the war, Pentagon leaders said Wednesday that the equipment and training being provided will enable Ukraine to win the war — where and when it chooses to do so.
“There is a significant ongoing effort to build up the Ukrainian military in terms of equipment, munitions and training in a variety of countries in order to enable Ukraine to defend itself,” said Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Mark Milley.
“The increased Ukrainian capability will allow the Ukrainian leadership to develop and execute a variety of options in the future, to achieve their objectives and bring this war to a successful conclusion,” Milley said.
More than 600 Ukrainians in February completed a five-week training program in Germany that included basic skills such as marksmanship, along with medical training and instruction on combined arms maneuver with U.S.-made Bradley Fighting Vehicles and Stryker armored personnel carriers. Those forces are now back on the battlefield, and a second batch of hundreds of additional soldiers are now going through the program.
Behind closed doors, U.S. officials have been pressing Kyiv to conserve artillery shells and fire in a more targeted fashion. This is a particular concern in Bakhmut, where both sides are expending munitions at a rapid pace.
“Some in the Pentagon think that they are burning up ammunition too fast,” said retired Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges, former commander of U.S. Army Forces Europe. “Excuse me, they’re in a massive fight for the survival of their country against an enemy that has huge advantages in artillery ammunition and is not letting up.”
Kyiv has not yet settled on a strategy, U.S. officials said, but it has essentially two options: push south through Kherson into Crimea, or move east from its northern position and then south, cutting off the Russian land bridge. The first option is not realistic, officials said, as Russia has dug in its defenses on the east side of the Dnipro River, and Ukraine does not have the manpower for a successful amphibious operation against that kind of force. The second is more likely, officials say.
In addition to sending weapons and providing training, senior American generals hosted Ukrainian military officials in Wiesbaden, Germany this month for a set of tabletop exercises to help Kyiv wargame the next phase of the war.
President Joe Biden last month ruled out sending F-16 fighter jets, and senior U.S. officials have repeatedly said the aircrafts are not in the cards right now. But officials are working on other ways to boost the Ukrainian air force, including attempting to mount advanced medium-range air-to-air missiles on its Soviet-era MiG-29s, and assessing the skills of Ukrainian pilots.
Two Ukrainian pilots recently wrapped up an assessment at an Air National Guard base in Tucson, Arizona, for U.S. military instructors to assess what training they need to better employ the aircrafts and capabilities the West has already provided, including bombs, missiles and guidance kits. The program included simulator flights, but the pilots did not fly in American aircrafts, officials said.
An effort to mount AMRAAMs on the MiGs, if it proves successful, could also significantly increase the ability of Ukraine’s fighter pilots to take out Russian missiles, officials said.
As quickly as Ukraine is running out of munitions, Russia’s human and equipment losses are even more acute, forcing Moscow to appeal to rogue nations such as Iran for additional weapons.
“Russia remains isolated, their military stocks are rapidly depleting, the soldiers are demoralized, untrained unmotivated conscripts in convicts and their leadership is failing them,” Milley said.
Publicly, senior officials say it is up to Zelenskyy when and where to launch a new offensive, and whether to remain in Bakhmut or reposition his forces.
“President Zelensky is fighting this fight, and he will make the calls on what’s important and what’s not,” Austin said. But he noted that: “We’re generating combat power, to a degree that we believe that it will provide them opportunities to change the dynamics on the battlefield, at some point going forward, whatever point that is.”
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
United Nations: It is the best time to be a woman in India today, the country’s UN envoy Ruchira Kamboj has said, emphasising that the government was fully empowering women at all levels.
The Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations, in partnership with UN Women India, organised a high-level panel discussion this week on ‘Leveraging Public-Private Commitment for Women’s Greater Access to Technology and Education” at the United Nations Headquarters on the margins of the ongoing 67th session of the Commission on Status of Women.
“In India, there has been enormous, enormous growth in the past eight-nine years particularly and today, I think it is perhaps the best time to be a woman in India. I mean that very sincerely,” India’s Permanent Representative to the UN Ambassador Kamboj said.
In her remarks, Kamboj stressed that in India “we recognise the transformational capacity of technology to provide impetus to women’s empowerment and sustainable development.” “This is a fantastic time to be a woman and the government is fully empowering you at all levels. The Prime Minister has emphasised upon a model of women-led growth and development and it is very much a reality,” Kamboj said.
She highlighted that the Government of India has taken numerous citizen-centric digital initiatives with a greater focus to enable access for women to finance, credit, technology and employment.
These initiatives have focused on providing immediate assistance to women in distress, preventing violence against women, and promoting women’s full and equal participation in every sphere of society, she said.
Kamboj spoke on two major initiatives — the Digital India programme and the Jan Dhan-Aadhaar-Mobile (JAM) trinity — that have shown the capacity of technology to provide impetus to women’s empowerment and sustainable development.
She said that during the pandemic, these initiatives had facilitated direct benefit transfer to nearly 200 million women.
Assistant Secretary-General and Deputy Executive Director of UN Women Anita Bhatia said that since 2017, successive Commissions on the Status of Women have recognized the important and fundamental role that digitalization plays in closing the gender digital divide.
Highlighting that women have less access than men and boys to technology, Bhatia said “the non-negotiables have to be a recognition that digital rights are also human rights and that women have as much right to digital access as do men and boys.” She pointed to data, which she termed as “pretty shocking” and according to which, globally men are 20 per cent more likely to be online than women, with this percentage as high as 52 in low-income countries as a group.
“There also has to be a recognition of this from the point of view of opportunity, because not investing sufficiently in digitalization means that governments are actually leaving money on the table,” she said.
Bhatia added that in a post-pandemic world, where the fiscal space is constrained, “this is actually a fabulous opportunity to say how can we leapfrog our economies, how can we grow our economies quickly and how can we do so by leveraging both the power, creativity and innovation of women, but also the power of creativity and innovation that is inherent in digitalisation.” Bhatia also noted that the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) field is “uber-masculine” and “we need to make it look less masculine and have more girls and boys involved in this.” Apollo Hospitals Joint Managing Director Dr Sangita Reddy told the discussion that “in a single word, what we are all seeking today – we were striving for equity. We’re looking forward now to ‘Techquity’.” Reddy said it is techquity “which will help us take the position that we’re looking forward to in the years to come.” With technology driving every aspect and field of life now, Reddy said from computing and automation to artificial intelligence, “the world is transforming. As we seek equity in this world, it is important for every woman to be digitally connected, digitally savvy,” Reddy said.
The panel discussion was organised as a part of the ‘India Roundtables’ at the United Nations.
The roundtables, being organised to commemorate India@75, will showcase India’s achievements in various areas of development, including women empowerment, financial inclusion, social development, climate action and many more.
The panel, moderated by Country Representative, UN Women India Susan Ferguson, included Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, LinkedIn Melissa Selcher and Senior Vice President & Human Resources Development Head – India & Americas, Nina Nair.
The massive ConocoPhillips endeavor, called the Willow project, will at its peak produce 180,000 barrels of oil a day across 68,000 acres inside the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska. Advocates say it will be an economic game changer for the state and even the nation, while environmentalists called it Biden’s single biggest climate betrayal since taking office.
Murkowski can take much of the credit for the result. In an interview with POLITICO’s E&E News on Monday afternoon, the Republican said she didn’t think it was “any great secret” that Biden was influenced, in part, by politics, as he weighed the inevitable backlash from green activists and fellow Democrats versus voters’ worries about rising energy costs and reliance on foreign oil.
“I think in terms of the president’s engagement in this, a single state project … doesn’t get elevated to the presidential level, to the senior team, unless there’s political interest,” she said.
But Murkowski also traced Biden’s decision back to the carefully orchestrated pressure and education campaign she conducted around the president and his senior team.
“When he was first was elected, I made sure that he knew — by way of letter, by way of any time I saw him — I would mention [Willow] until it became almost a bit of a joke because he knew that I was going to raise it,” Murkowski recalled. “And equally so with his senior team. I made clear that they knew.”
‘Relationships matter’
When it came to Willow, as Murkowski’s conversations with the administration were first getting under way in early 2021, she agreed to support Biden’s pick for Interior secretary, then-New Mexico Democratic Rep. Deb Haaland, despite her concerns about the nominee’s far-left environmental record.
Shortly thereafter, the Biden Justice Department announced it would defend Willow in court against litigation from activists alleging the ConocoPhillips project would be devastating to the environment — a seeming reversal from a president who promised, during his 2020 campaign, “no more drilling on federal lands, period.”
Then, Biden’s initial selection for deputy Interior secretary, Liz Klein, was swapped out for Tommy Beaudreau, who held a variety of posts in the Obama Interior Department. Most important for Murkowski, Beaudreau also had a reputation for being more friendly to oil and gas interests, had ties to Alaska and enjoyed a longstanding rapport with the state’s senior senator.
In fact, Murkowski was instrumental in convincing Biden to nominate him for assistant secretary instead of Klein — Murkowski and others perceived Klein as hostile to fossil fuel interests. Klein is now the director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, a position Beaudreau once held himself.
Beaudreau’s nomination for the deputy secretary position, paired with the administration’s posture surrounding Willow in the courts, was a turning point for Murkowski in her dealings with the Biden Interior Department.
“Relationships matter,” she said in the interview Monday. “We worked with one another for a while, had a very respectful relationship, and so when [Beaudreau] came into the Biden administration, it was easy to sit and talk with him because we had had a good foundation previously, and so that, I think, is important.”
Murkowski said she “needed to be able to be direct and frank with” Beaudreau. On the flip side, she said, “he needed to be honest with the fact that, ‘Look, you got … a president that ran on a platform really focused on climate, who made “no new oil and gas” statements, kind of a view towards energy that was really going to be challenging and difficult for a state like Alaska,’ where we rely on resources, particularly oil resources, for revenue, for jobs, for everything.”
Through those conversations, Murkowski realized, she needed to form relationships beyond the one she had with Beaudreau if she wanted to impact policy — and secure Willow’s future. She honed in on Louisa Terrell, the White House director of legislative affairs, and Steve Ricchetti, a top Biden aide.
“Just sitting down and talking to them, one on one, with no agenda other than, ‘I’m Lisa, this is my state, let me tell you what’s important,’” Murkowski said of her approach. “Building relationships helped me as I navigated some folks who really, really were not inclined to support the Willow project.”
It also necessitated a level of dealmaking, she acknowledged: “‘Yeah, I can help you on some of the EV stuff,’” she recalled telling the White House during negotiations over the bipartisan infrastructure package, “‘but one of these days, we’re going to want to see EV ferries out there.’”
In July, Murkowski announced $300 million would be made available for the electrification of ferries through that infrastructure law, which would benefit Alaska.
White House vs. Interior
It was not just Murkowski who exerted pressure. Alaska’s entire three-member congressional delegation played a role, and they took collective credit for forcing Biden’s hand Monday.
In a call with reporters Monday morning that served as a victory lap, Murkowski, Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan and Democratic Rep. Mary Peltola detailed the coordinated full-court press to sway the administration in its final stages of decisionmaking, culminating in an hourlong meeting in the Oval Office with Biden on March 3.
There, Murkowski emphasized Willow’s economic advantages, Sullivan the geopolitical implications and Peltola the diverse constituencies supporting the project on the ground, including Alaska Natives.
“The decision was ultimately going to be made at the White House level — not only with senior leaders, but the president’s direct involvement himself,” Murkowski asserted during that call. “The president had clearly been apprised of Willow, of what Willow was and why it was a priority for us.”
Although she voted for Haaland for Interior Secretary, Murkowski has been deeply critical of her leadership of the department. She is also scornful of other top Interior officials she has accused of turning a blind eye to Alaska’s unique circumstances. Alaska officials have long said stewardship of the state’s environment needs to be balanced with support for energy development, the latter of which powers the state and funds social services.
On Monday, she didn’t hesitate to credit the Biden administration for the decision while suggesting some inside Interior were seeking to undercut it.
“Were there people … within the Department of the Interior that were working to actively kill this? Absolutely, positively, and I don’t think you have to name names,” Murkowski asserted, adding, “This was not something that I think was ultimately going to reside with the secretary of the Interior.”
The exception to that rule continues to be Beaudreau, who Murkowski said reached out to her personally to “walk me through the specific details” of the administration’s announcements relating to energy extraction activities on federal lands around the state.
Biden’s ‘promise’
As Alaska lawmakers celebrated the news Monday, climate hawks were aghast at the administration’s greenlighting of the Willow project as a surrender on multiple fronts.
“I’m sure they had a significant impact, there’s no doubt about it,” said Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) of the Alaska delegation on a press call with representatives from the Alaska Wilderness League and the Sierra Club on Monday afternoon. “They brought the political pressure. … None of that is surprising. What is surprising, and frankly very disappointing, is that a decision like this came down to politics.”
Sierra Club executive director Ben Jealous agreed: “No doubt this will help with the reelection of every member of the Alaska delegation.”
In the upcoming election cycle, no member of the trio stands to benefit more than Peltola, the first Alaska Native to represent the state who won a special election last summer to succeed late-Republican Rep. Don Young.
Peltola, a member of the House Natural Resources Committee alongside Huffman, was just added to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s list of most vulnerable incumbents for 2024.
“Getting Willow across the finish line is something I campaigned very hard on,” she said Monday. “I knew this had to be a priority of anybody who was the position I’m in.”
But, Jealous added, “it’s hard to see how this really adds up for President Biden. … His political calculation and his climate calculation may have made sense in the last century, but it’s clearly less suited for this century we’re in … both on politics and on preventing human extinction.”
Murkowski, in her interview, dismissed accusations of Biden’s “capitulation” to fossil fuel interests.
“The only promise the president ever made to me on Willow was that he was going to listen to me,” she said.
He listened, Murkowski said, to the facts about Alaska’s environmental standards and the myriad ways Alaskans depend on the extraction industry, “and he evaluated that against everything else that he had coming at him, and all the politics that he knew were going to be thrown at him.”
Her conclusion: “I think he evaluated it clearly,” she said, “and he made the right decision.”
A version of this report first ran in E&E News’ E&E Daily. Get access to more comprehensive and in-depth reporting on the energy transition, natural resources, climate change and more in E&E News.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
Politics had nothing to do with dealing with how we clean up the mess from the train, for example, or how we hold the train company liable and accountable for this. So Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and I both from the point of view of, “Hey, we got a problem. And let’s go fix it.” So yeah, I think there’s plenty of opportunity for people to work in a bipartisan way.
Another example is Gov. Steve Beshear, in Kentucky, another Democrat. He and I are going to build a bridge across the Ohio River. We got the federal government and we got our money and his money, and we’re going to build a bridge. We’ve worked exceedingly well together.
So, yeah, I think people want us to get things done. I think they don’t like partisan battles. You know, there are gonna be things that parties just are going to disagree about. And that is what it is. I have always found in my 20 years in Congress, particularly my 12 years in the U.S. Senate, as well as my time now as governor for the last four years, that you can find common ground. You can get things done.
What are your policy goals for your second term?
Since I took office, I have put an emphasis on mental health and fulfilling John Kennedy’s pledge in 1963, 50 years ago, to have mental health services available in every community in the country. From Day One, I put an emphasis on this. I provided in my first budget, my second budget now my third budget about $650 million for schools to use for mental health.
When the pandemic hit, we put money directly into our colleges and universities for mental health for students. We continue to have a very aggressive budget. In regard to mental health, we’re also taking this into the communities. We have additional money in this budget, for example, if it’s approved by the legislature, in regard to the research. We’re not doing enough research in the area of mental health. So, that’s a priority.
Prenatal care and pre-K education is also a priority and getting kids ready for school. Reading, as I told you, is important.
Another area is community development. We have a proposal in our budget this year that I think is unique. And it is to set aside a half billion dollars in what we call the Ohio Future Fund and that is to help local communities when they have a prospective site that needs to be cleaned up or that needs to be gotten ready for developments. They can tap into that fund. I consider it a window of opportunity for Ohio.
We are in a great position. Not only have we brought Intel chip fabrication plants into Ohio, but we’re having a groundbreaking for a new Honda facility to make electric batteries. This is really, I think, Ohio’s time.
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( With inputs from : www.politico.com )
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