Trump loves deep sea mining, and that’s not good

Presumably there will be lawsuits over this, and maybe some action by state legislators (especially in Hawai’i), and we’ll see how things go.

The Trump administration is supporting a new and highly destructive deep-sea mining (DSM) industry in our ocean, despite immense environmental risks and broad international opposition. Early in his second term, President Trump issued an executive order directing agencies to fast-track deep-sea mining in both U.S. and international waters. Since then, and for the first time ever, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) officially initiated the process of leasing for deep-sea mining offshore American Samoa and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI). BOEM also plans to initiate minerals leasing offshore Virginia. Meanwhile, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is advancing an application for an exploration license in the Pacific Ocean southeast of Hawai‘i and may soon advance an application for a permit to mine in the same area.

By fast-tracking deep-sea mining, the administration is leading a race to the bottom. The deep sea is the largest and least-explored habitat on earth. Humans know very little about it, yet we do know that DSM would likely cause significant and irreparable harm to deep-sea habitats over huge areas, including the destruction of the seafloor and the ecosystems it supports. The discharge of mining waste would result in sediment plumes that could spread for hundreds of miles. - NRDC

The billionaires are some serious carbon hogs

Although, you know, they do so much for the rest of us

Climate change is everyone’s problem, but not everyone equally shares the blame for rising global temperatures. A new analysis from Oxfam reveals the outsized contribution from the richest portion of the world’s population.

The stunning findings, published January 9, show that the super-rich exhausted their annual carbon budget—the amount of CO2 that can be emitted while staying within 1.5 degrees of global warming—within the first 10 days of 2026. For the richest 0.1%, it only took three days. - Gizmodo

96% of Trump tariffs are being paid by us

“Us” meaning U.S. importers and consumers. I’ve seen where even some progressive commenters have questioned how much damage the Trump tariffs are actually doing, because overall inflation hasn’t spiked. They may have overlooked how even small individual hits add up. There are also indications that importers are no longer in a position to absorb a substantial share of the tariff hits, and that an inflation spike for consumers is on its way. We'll see.

President Donald Trump has long insisted, in the face of decades of research by economists, that foreign producers are the only ones who are paying for his tariffs on imported goods.

However, a major new study released Monday by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, an economic think tank based in Germany, shows that US businesses and consumers are shouldering the burden for the vast majority of Trump’s tariffs.

After examining more than 25 million shipment records of goods imported to the US last year, the institute found that foreign exporters only absorbed 4% of the $200 billion in tariff payments, with the remaining 96% being passed on to US importers and consumers. - Common Dreams

Apparently there’s no such thing as a corporate criminal

Unless he profits at the Trump family’s expense, I suppose.

Since taking office, the Trump administration has canceled or halted a total of 159 enforcement actions against 166 corporations, according to a report from Public Citizen released (January 15). As a result of this retreat, at least 18 corporations accused of lawbreaking avoided paying a total of $3.1 billion in penalties for misconduct…

Public Citizen’s report found that corporations with close ties to Trump and the administration are benefiting from canceled and frozen enforcement. More than 30 made donations to fund Trump’s inauguration or White House ballroom. Seventeen have revolving door or insider connections with the administration. Twelve hired lobbyists who are closely allied with the administration. Ten have business relationships with Trump’s private companies. And nine made political contributions backing Trump’s presidential campaign. - Public Citizen

All the handouts Big Meat gets

And despite all the freebies being put into the system I understand that rump roast is pushing about a dollar a bite, these days.

The federal government allows livestock grazing across an area of publicly owned land more than twice the size of California, making ranching the largest land use in the West. Billions of dollars of taxpayer subsidies support the system, which often harms the environment.

As President Donald Trump’s administration pushes a pro-ranching agenda, ProPublica and High Country News investigated how public lands ranching has evolved. We filed more than 100 public record requests and sued the Bureau of Land Management to pry free documents and data; we interviewed everyone from ranchers to conservationists; and we toured ranching operations in Arizona, Colorado, Montana and Nevada.

The resulting three-part investigation digs into the subsidies baked into ranching, the environmental impacts from livestock and the political clout that protects this status quo. - ProPublica

Challenging student loan wage garnishment

This has suggestions.

For the first time since the onset of COVID-19, the Trump administration is set to garnish U.S. workers’ wages for defaulted student loans. The Department of Education has announced that beginning this week it will send at least 1,000 borrowers a notice of intent to garnish wages, sending additional notices every month as it expands its efforts to forcibly collect money from millions of borrowers in default…

But debtors shouldn’t feel hopeless. The truth is, there are a host of options at debtors’ disposal that the Department of Education does not tell borrowers about. Many borrowers who receive default notices will actually be eligible for debt cancellation, whether they know it or not.

Cancellation programs like Total and Permanent Disability, False Certification, and Borrower Defense can provide relief for millions of borrowers who deserve it because their university cheated them or closed down while they were enrolled. Another little-known option that borrowers have is to apply for a hardship exemption if wage garnishment causes them financial hardship. While temporary, and certainly not a solution to the student debt crisis, debtors can apply to pause or reduce forced collections if they are in difficult circumstances. - Truthout

The private sector takeover of disaster recovery

This has been going on for a while. But it’s accelerating now.

But even before President Donald Trump took office with an eye toward diminishing the agency, recovery funds couldn’t keep up with victims’ needs. Now, as the administration slashes FEMA funding, withholds aid, and puts more of the onus of recovery onto individual states, victim-assistance organizations feel that they’ve been left totally unprepared, with too few case managers to go around. All of these issues are likely to grow more severe in the coming year, as a review board appointed to reform the agency prepares to make its recommendations…

The private sector’s creeping influence over disaster recovery has been noted since at least 2007, when Naomi Klein published The Shock Doctrine, the book that injected the term “disaster capitalism” into a broader lexicon. But as climate change accelerates and hammers the United States with more billion-dollar catastrophes than ever before, privatization has become more common — and complicated. Private interests can quickly mobilize huge volunteer networks, giving campaigns, and rebuilding efforts in the wake of extreme weather. But, whatever their intentions, such measures are a consequence — and sometimes a cause — of the corrosion of public institutions originally intended to safeguard Americans. - Grist