Raphael Stevens

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed a rule that would strengthen federal limits on industrial soot, one of the country’s most deadly air pollutants.
The proposal is the latest action by the Biden administration to better address environmental justice and air pollution.
Communities of color are systematically exposed to higher levels of soot and other air pollutants as they are more likely to be located near highways, oil and gas wells and other industrial sources.

Seen from the window of an Amtrak train, smoke billows up from power plants alongside the tracks in Northern Virginia.
Andrew Lichtenstein | Corbis Historical | Getty Images

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on Friday proposed a rule that would strengthen federal limits on industrial soot, one of the country’s most deadly air pollutants that disproportionately impacts the health of low-income and minority communities. 
The proposal is the latest action by the Biden administration to better address environmental justice and air pollution. Research shows that exposure to particulate matter, known as PM 2.5, leads to heart attacks, asthma attacks and premature death. Studies have also linked long-term exposure to soot with higher rates of death from Covid-19.

Communities of color are systematically exposed to higher levels of soot and other air pollutants as they are more likely to be located near highways, oil and gas wells, and other industrial sources.
The EPA proposal seeks to limit the pollution of industrial fine soot particles — which measure less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter — from the current annual level of 12 micrograms per cubic meter to a level between 9 and 10 micrograms per cubic meter, which the EPA said aligns with the latest health data and scientific evidence. However, officials said they are also considering public comment on an annual level as low as 8 micrograms per cubic meter and as high as 11 micrograms per cubic meter.
The Trump administration had declined to tighten the existing Obama-era regulations that were set in 2012, despite warnings from EPA scientists that doing so could save thousands of lives in the U.S.
“The 2012 standards are no longer sufficient,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan told reporters during a briefing Thursday. “This administration is committed to working to ensure all people have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink and an opportunity to live a healthy life.”
If the proposal is finalized, a strengthened annual PM 2.5 standard at a level of 9 micrograms per cubic meter — the lower end of the agency’s proposed range — would prevent up to 4,200 annual premature deaths and result in as much as $43 billion in net health benefits in 2032, according to the EPA.

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Some public health advocates criticized the proposed standards as not going far enough. Paul Billings, senior vice president at the American Lung Association, said the soot standards must be lowered to an annual level as protective as 8 micrograms per cubic meter in order to best safeguard public health.
“Cleaning up deadly particulate matter is critical for protecting public health,” Billings said. “Failing to finalize the standards at the most protective levels that health organizations are calling for would lead to health harms that could have been avoided, and would miss a critical opportunity to meet President Biden’s environmental justice commitments.”
Air pollution takes more than two years off the average global life expectancy, according to the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago. Sixty percent of particulate matter air pollution is produced by fossil fuel combustion, while 18% comes from natural sources like dust, sea salt and wildfires, and 22% comes from other human activities.
PM 2.5 particles can be emitted directly from the source, including construction sites, unpaved roads, fields or smokestacks, or form in the atmosphere as a result of reactions of chemicals like sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides, which are pollutants emitted from power plants, industrial facilities and vehicles, according to an EPA fact sheet.
Industries including oil and gas companies and automakers have long opposed a stricter standard on soot pollution. During the Trump administration, a slew of industry groups argued against scientific findings on the public health impact of PM 2.5 exposure and urged the government to maintain the existing standard.
The EPA is accepting public comment for 60 days after the proposal is published in the Federal Register. The agency is scheduled to release a final rule by August.

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Germany’s BioNTech is launching a U.K. trial of personalized mRNA therapies, including cancer vaccines, from September.
It aims to deliver 10,000 therapies to patients before 2030.
Campaigners called on the government to ensure any positive outcome could be delivered at an accessible price point and include delivery to global cancer patients.

A NHS vaccinator administers the Pfizer-BioNTech Covid-19 booster jab to a woman, at a vaccination centre in London. BioNTech is launching a large-scale trial of mRNA therapies to treat cancer and other diseases in the U.K.
Sopa Images | Lightrocket | Getty Images

LONDON — The U.K. government on Friday announced a partnership with German firm BioNTech to test potential vaccines for cancer and other diseases, as campaigners warned any breakthrough must remain affordable and accessible.
Cancer patients in England will get early access to trials involving personalized mRNA therapies, including cancer vaccines, which aim to spur the immune system to attack harmful cells.

They will be administered to early and late-stage patients and target both active cancer cells and preventing their return.
BioNTech will set up new research and development centers in the U.K., with a lab in Cambridge and headquarters in London, and aim to deliver 10,000 therapies to patients from September 2023 until the end of the decade.
The company developed one of the most widely-distributed Covid-19 vaccines alongside U.S. pharma firm Pfizer. Its CEO, Ugur Sahin, said it had learned lessons from the coronavirus pandemic about collaboration between the British National Health Service, academics, regulators and the private sector in the development of drugs that it was applying now.
“Our goal is to accelerate the development of immunotherapies and vaccines using technologies we have been researching for over 20 years,” he said in a statement. “The collaboration will cover various cancer types and infectious diseases affecting collectively hundreds of millions of people worldwide.”
Peter Johnson, Britain’s National Clinical Director for Cancer, said mRNA technology had the potential to transform approaches to a number of illnesses.

The government confirmed to CNBC the announcement represented a private investment into the U.K., but would be supported by a new Cancer Vaccine Launch Pad funded by the NHS.

Other mRNA cancer vaccines, including a collaboration between U.S. firms Moderna and Merck, are also being trialed.
Tim Bierley, a campaigner at U.K.-based group Global Justice Now, said big pharmaceutical companies had “terrible record of price gouging on new medicines, even where public money has played a key role in bringing them to the market.”
“The government has a moral duty to push BioNtech to set the price of this potentially life-saving vaccine so it is accessible to all,” he said.

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Mohga Kamal-Yanni, policy co-lead for the People’s Vaccine Alliance — a global group of health organizations, economists and activists — said news of the trial was good, but that any outcome “belongs to the people” due to the amount of public funding involved.
“The U.K. government must say how it will ensure any new medicine, vaccine or technology will be made available and affordable to developing countries,” Kamal-Yanni said.
A government spokesperson told CNBC the research was at too early a stage to discuss pricing and distribution, but pointed to its record in distributing free Covid-19 vaccines.

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Commercial aircraft are generally expensive to manufacture, operate, maintain and fly, but not many think about the cost that goes into painting one.
Dean Baldwin Painting is a 57-year-old aircraft painting company based in Macon, Georgia. It owns and operates five facilities across the U.S. Its clients are some of the largest airlines in the world, including United, Delta and JetBlue.

The average cost to paint a plane falls between $175,000 and $200,000, according to the company.
“The safety, the compliance, the environment, the manpower, the training — it’s not as easy as most people think,” says Barbara Baldwin-McNulty, CEO and owner of the company. “I think between the cost of having a facility with all these licenses and all these parameters, I think it’s also the time it takes to get a good team to provide the quality that the airlines do expect from you.”
The Federal Aviation Administration sets the safety standards for aircraft paint, and throughout the entire painting process, the plane is continually inspected to ensure those standards are being met. Beginning to end, the process involves multiple engineers, painters and inspectors.
Painting typically involves four to five layers but only tends to be as thick as a fraction of a millimeter. Those layers include an anti-corrosion primer, protective intermediate layers and a final outer layer, which is typically white. The color white is commonly used because it reflects light most effectively.
The global commercial aviation aircraft paint market was estimated at nearly $18.5 billion in 2020 and is expected to grow to a $65 billion market by 2027.

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Ronaldo’s two-and-a-half-year contract, reportedly worth up to 200 million euros ($212 million) per year including commercial agreements, will make the 37-year-old the highest-paid footballer in history, and the highest-paid athlete in the world.
The Portuguese forward’s move comes as Saudi Arabia reportedly readies a potential joint bid to stage the 2030 World Cup.
And it follows the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s buyout of historic Premier League club Newcastle United in late 2021. 

Portuguese football star Cristiano Ronaldo poses for a photo with the jersey after signing with Saudi Arabia’s Al-Nassr Football Club in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on December 30, 2022.
Al Nassr Football Club / Handout/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Soccer superstar Cristiano Ronaldo’s move to Saudi club Al-Nassr, and the kingdom’s growing investments in the sport, could have ripple effects across Europe and the U.S., experts have told CNBC.
Ronaldo’s two-and-a-half-year contract, reportedly worth up to 200 million euros ($212 million) per year including commercial agreements, will make the 37-year-old the highest-paid footballer in history, and the highest-paid athlete in the world. 

For context, Ronaldo’s individual annual earnings will exceed the total staff wage bill for roughly half of the clubs in the English Premier League. The former Real Madrid, Manchester United and Juventus star earlier this week contended that the “unique contract” was befitting of his status as a “unique player.”
Ronaldo had his contract with Manchester United terminated in November after he gave an explosive interview criticizing the club and its manager, Erik ten Hag.
The Portuguese forward’s move comes as Saudi Arabia reportedly readies a potential joint bid to stage the 2030 World Cup, and follows the Saudi Public Investment Fund’s buyout of historic Premier League club Newcastle United in late 2021. 
The Financial Times reported in October that the Saudi PIF had committed more than $2 billion to sponsorship deals over the first eight months of 2022, most of which was directed toward domestic soccer competitions.

Author and soccer finance expert Kieran Maguire told CNBC on Thursday that rather than an effort to rival the major European leagues, Al-Nassr’s signing of Ronaldo was a “marketing exercise” that enables the kingdom to diversify its commercial appeal beyond natural resources, given the size of the player’s individual profile.

“If you take a look at the social media following that somebody of Cristiano Ronaldo’s status brings, it’s far greater than that of an individual football club,” Maguire said. 
“Saudi Arabia has a young population, so he will attract that generation. There’s economic benefits, there’s political and societal benefits, and the financial cost is a complete irrelevance.”
Manchester United and Liverpool in Saudi crosshairs?
The Saudi PIF’s takeover of Newcastle United was met with criticism across the soccer world — deemed an effort to launder the country’s reputation against the backdrop of a poor human rights record. 
A group called NUFC Fans Against Sportswashing sprung up in protest at the takeover, but having watched their club endure a prolonged spell of mediocrity, many Newcastle fans cheered the investment in the hope of becoming a competitive force in England and beyond.
Just 15 months on from the completion of the deal, the club sits third in the Premier League table, sandwiched between perennial giants Manchester City and Manchester United.
Saudi officials have consistently denied allegations of sportswashing in their various sporting pursuits, and the Newcastle takeover consortium led by British businesswoman Amanda Staveley insists the PIF is independent from the Saudi government.
However, PIF forms the bedrock of the Saudi economic project and its Vision 2030 program. Statements lauding the PIF’s progress from King Salman bin Abdulaziz and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman appear in its annual financial statements.
The PIF owns 80% of the club, with the remaining 20% split between Staveley’s PCP Capital Partners and RB Sports & Media. The PIF has been contacted for comment.
Ownership controversies have also surrounded Premier League champions Manchester City, (owned by the Abu Dhabi United Group) and French champions Paris Saint-Germain (owned by Qatar Sports Investments). 
Having observed other state-sponsored takeovers over the past decade, along with the success of the contentious FIFA World Cup in Qatar in December, Maguire suggested that Saudi Arabia could look to expand its soccer portfolio in one of two ways.
“PIF could go down a similar route to the UAE in having the City Football Group and going for a multi-club ownership model, where effectively you have a mothership and you have a lot of satellites,” he suggested. 
Aside from its flagship club Manchester City, the ADUG’s City Football Group now owns nine other clubs across four continents with consistent branding and availability of resources.

“From a financial point of view, that’s actually turning out to be quite successful because you can have continuity in terms of culture and philosophy at clubs, you can transfer players around to help their development, and then you can start to sell them at higher prices, so it’s actually proven to be, these days, a pretty smart model,” Maguire added.
Alternatively, given the number of high net worth individuals in Saudi Arabia likely to be interested in building on the Newcastle United acquisition, he suggested other high-profile clubs could come into Riyadh’s sights. 
Both Liverpool and Manchester United, arguably the two biggest clubs in England in terms of global profile, have publicly declared that they are open to investment, and possibly even a full sale.
“[The Saudis] have seen the positive response from Newcastle fans — there are two clubs which are publicly up for some form of investment in Liverpool and Manchester United and no disrespect to Newcastle United, they’re much bigger fish,” he said.
“Sports investment is attractive. You won’t necessarily get a substantial return on your investment financially, given the high prices they are likely to have to go and pay for a club of that stature, but the non-financial return on investment as we’ve seen at both the Etihad (home of Manchester City) and PSG is a positive one.”
Individual star signings model could threaten MLS
Credit ratings agency DBRS Morningstar suggested that Ronaldo’s move to the Saudi Pro League, and the country’s apparent intentions, could imperil the credit risk profiles of European and North American clubs.
“In Europe, as player costs at football clubs are tied to their revenues, increasing individual salaries driven by foreign demand could decrease squad quality over time. This could have a longer-term impact on on-pitch results, brand values, and viewership for teams that are unable to grow revenue and reinvest in their squads,” said DBRS Morningstar Senior Vice President for Sports Finance Michael Goldberg. 
Saudi investment has disrupted professional golf in the form of LIV Golf, a breakaway competition from the traditional PGA Tour that utilized Riyadh’s deep pockets to draw some of the game’s biggest names.
However, Goldberg suggested that attracting a handful of superstars in the twilight of their careers to a team sports league would not be sufficient for Saudi Arabia to attract a critical mass of fan interest, since the quality of play would still be considerably lower than in top European leagues.
The Saudi model poses more of a threat to the U.S., he noted, since Major League Soccer (MLS) has a long-running strategy of attracting aging star players to build interest and viewership. To this end, each club is permitted to sign three players whose compensation package is excluded from the team’s salary cap.

For example, Italian winger Lorenzo Insigne left Serie A team Napoli to join Toronto FC in 2022 and became the highest-paid player in MLS history with a reported annual salary of $12.4 million. This pales in comparison with the mammoth contract signed by Ronaldo.
“The SPL can far outpay MLS clubs and could threaten a key aspect of MLS’ business model. While the overall quality of play in the MLS has been increasing rapidly through investment in player development, coaching, and designated players, the quality gap between it and the SPL is much narrower than that of the SPL relative to the European leagues,” Goldberg said.
As such, DBRS Morningstar believes the SPL’s financial might and willingness to target star players from European leagues, who may otherwise consider the MLS, could negatively impact North American clubs’ credit profiles.
Goldberg anticipates that Saudi investment will pose a greater immediate risk to individual sports like golf, tennis, mixed martial arts (MMA), and racing.
European wage inflation
European clubs have continually increased transfer fees and player salaries in recent decades in order to attract and retain top talent and stay competitive. 
Goldberg suggested that Saudi investment in individual players could propel player salaries higher, but European soccer body UEFA recently introduced rules stipulating that no club can spend more than 90% of its yearly revenues on wages, transfers, and agent fees in 2023. This limit will further reduce to 70% in 2025.
“As such, if revenues do not continue to grow, European clubs’ wage bills will be capped. Under this scenario, increased individual player salaries could lead to reduced squad quality over time and a competitive disadvantage versus teams outside Europe,” Goldberg said.
“Any negative impact on on-pitch results, brand values, and viewership would also affect European football clubs’ credit profiles, and clubs that could not grow revenue and reinvest in their squads would be most exposed.”

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