Good evening. I’m British Chris, and this is Raw America.
Trump recently forced a Canadian pension fund to invest in oil instead of wind. The recent disease outbreak on a cruise ship comes after Trump’s CDC fired cruise ship inspectors. Philadelphia is putting new restrictions on ICE, and Florida’s infamous “Alligator Alcatraz” detention camp is unraveling. Let’s dive in.
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Trump Forces Canadian Pension Fund to Invest in Fossil Fuels
The Trump administration is forcing a renewable energy company backed by Canadian pension money to abandon its offshore wind project in California in favor of fossil fuels.
The company is Golden State Wind, a joint venture between Reventus Power and a firm called Ocean Winds. Reventus is a portfolio company of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, which had over a billion Canadian dollars invested in wind power through Reventus as of last year.
Here’s the kicker: the Department of Interior announced that Golden State Wind had “voluntarily” surrendered its offshore wind lease. And in exchange for getting back the $120 million in lease fees it had paid, the company has to invest that same amount in American oil and gas projects along the Gulf Coast. This is clear-cut coercion.
Environmentalists and pension watchdogs in Canada are furious. Activist Patrick DeRochie said Canadians would be horrified to learn that their pension money is being redirected, potentially illegally, to prop up fossil fuels.
California isn’t taking this lying down. The state’s Energy Commission issued a subpoena to Golden State Wind, demanding records about the agreement. The commission’s chair called it a “backroom deal” that turns back the clock on clean energy innovation.
This wasn’t a one-off, either. The administration struck a similar arrangement earlier this year with the French energy giant TotalEnergies, which surrendered its offshore wind leases near the Carolinas and New York in exchange for a refund that it then plowed into fossil fuel projects. Critics called that one a billion-dollar bribe. It looks like the same playbook is being run again.
Golden State Wind has now said it won’t pursue any new wind projects in the United States.
Trump Fired the CDC’s Cruise Ship Inspectors. Now There’s a Hantavirus Outbreak.
A deadly hantavirus outbreak on a cruise ship called the MV Hondius has brought renewed attention to a decision made about a year ago that most people missed: the Trump administration fired all of the full-time employees working for the CDC’s Vessel Sanitation Program.
That program is responsible for inspecting cruise ships, monitoring illness outbreaks, and responding when things go wrong at sea. As of last April, all of its full-time civilian staff had been laid off, leaving behind a skeleton crew of 12 Public Health Service officers. The program’s lead epidemiologist was among those who lost their jobs. The one epidemiologist who remained was reportedly still in training.
This happened, by the way, during a record year for norovirus outbreaks on cruise ships.
The Hondius outbreak is linked to the Andes strain of hantavirus, which the World Health Organization confirmed on May 6th. This particular strain is notable because it’s the only known form of hantavirus that can be transmitted directly between humans. As of that same date, eight suspected cases had been linked to the ship, and at least three passengers had died.
The good news, if there is any, is that U.S. travelers aboard the ship are being closely monitored and that the risk to the American public is low. The Hondius also doesn’t fall under U.S. jurisdiction, so the gutted Vessel Sanitation Program wouldn’t have been directly involved here regardless.
But the broader question hangs in the air: when the next outbreak happens on a ship that is under U.S. jurisdiction, who exactly is going to respond?
Philadelphia Just Put Strict New Restraints on ICE
Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker signed six out of seven “ICE Out” bills into law this week, making the city one of the most legally fortified sanctuary cities in the country.
The legislation bans ICE raids on city-owned property, prohibits discrimination based on citizenship status, and bars the city from sharing information with ICE in most circumstances. Parker let the seventh bill, which bans immigration agents from concealing their identities, become law without her signature.
Philadelphia’s sanctuary policies have existed for years, but they were based on executive orders. That meant a future mayor could reverse them with a stroke of a pen. By codifying them into law, the City Council made it a lot harder to undo them.
That didn’t stop Washington from pushing back. The Republican-controlled House Judiciary Committee sent letters to Philadelphia’s top law enforcement officials this week, accusing the city of obstructing federal immigration enforcement and demanding records about the city’s interactions with ICE.
Parker’s own solicitor raised legal concerns about parts of the legislation, particularly the mask ban. But City Council President Kenyatta Johnson says the legislation will hold up in court, and he’s not backing down.
Alligator Alcatraz May Finally Shut Down
Florida’s notorious Everglades immigration detention center, which the state has branded “Alligator Alcatraz,” is reportedly in serious shutdown talks with the Trump administration.
The facility has become enormously expensive and, according to federal officials, ineffective. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis has been spending more than a million dollars a day to operate the remote facility, which sits in a swampy area between Miami and Naples. The federal government hasn’t reimbursed the state for the $608 million it’s spent running the center, and private vendors have been struggling to stay afloat.
The center opened last July as the nation’s first state-run facility holding federal immigration detainees. Trump and DeSantis made a big show of touring it together. The whole point, its architects said, was to make the conditions so inhospitable that people would think twice about staying in the country. That meant building in a remote location with no existing infrastructure, trucking in generators, tents, and supplies, and constantly trucking out sewage.
Critics have documented conditions inside the facility that they describe as unsanitary and inhumane. State officials have dismissed those claims as false. But a lawyer for two detainees filed a sworn declaration last month alleging that guards beat and pepper-sprayed men after their phone access was cut off, and submitted a photo of a detainee with a black eye as evidence.
About two-thirds of the roughly 1,400 men detained there have no criminal record.
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Thanks for watching. I’m British Chris, with Raw America. We’ll see you tomorrow.
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