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Republicans this week introduced a road map describing how they would mitigate rising gasoline prices and address climate change if the party wins control of the House in November’s midterm elections.
The plan arises from the energy, climate and conservation task force established last year by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and involves proposals that run counter to the warnings of climate scientists.
The strategy provides a broad overview of how the party would address high energy prices but doesn’t set specific greenhouse gas targets.

U.S. House Minority Leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) speaks as House Minority Whip Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) and Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO) listen during a news conference at the U.S. Capitol May 11, 2022 in Washington, DC.
Alex Wong | Getty Images

Republicans this week introduced a road map describing how they would mitigate rising gasoline prices and address climate change if the party wins control of the House of Representatives in the November midterms.
The plan arises from the energy, climate and conservation task force established last year by House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and involves proposals that run counter to the warnings of climate scientists.

The strategy provides a broad overview of how the party would address high energy prices but doesn’t set specific greenhouse gas emission targets. It calls for ramping up fossil fuel production and liquefied natural gas exports, as well as streamlining the permitting process for major infrastructure projects, according to The Washington Post, which first reported the plan.
The agenda also endorses legislation to expand hydropower, one of the oldest and largest sources of renewable energy, and condemns policies that increase U.S. demand for critical minerals mined from China, which are necessary for electric vehicle and renewable energy production. In a document introducing the road map, House Republicans cited Department of Energy statistics showing that only 3% of the more than 80,000 dams in the U.S. currently generate electricity.

“If Republicans earn back the House majority in the fall, we will be ready to enact that strategy and ease the suffering of working Americans’ wallets,” Rep. Garret Graves, R-La., the task force chair, wrote in a blog post.
Climate scientists have warned the world must dramatically reduce fossil fuel production to avoid the worst consequences of climate change. A recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said that limiting global warming to close to 1.5 degrees Celsius will become impossible in the next two decades without immediate and major emissions cuts.
The GOP has historically opposed measures to tackle the climate crisis. The Trump administration, for example, sought to reverse more than 100 environmental rules it deemed burdensome to the fossil fuel industry.

This week’s plan takes a vastly different approach to addressing climate change than the Biden administration’s agenda, which involves slashing emissions in half by 2030 and reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.

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The GOP plans to unveil the six policy areas of their plan, called “Unlock American Resources,” “American Innovation,” “Let America Build,” “Beat China and Russia,” “Conservation with a Purpose” and “Build Resilient Communities,” over the next two months.
The road map also comes after the House last year passed more than $500 billion in climate investments as part of the president’s Build Back Better Act. That legislation is still stalled in the Senate after opposition from Republicans and Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Every Republican in Congress has opposed the funding, contending it would exacerbate the worst inflation the U.S. has seen in decades.
Environmentalists and congressional Democrats argue the GOP plan is not only insufficient but would worsen the climate crisis.
“This climate plan sounds like it was concocted by a comic book supervillain,” said Brett Hartl, government affairs director at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Republicans have managed to devise a scheme that would make climate change even more destructive.”
Rep. Frank Pallone, D-N.J., who is chair of the Energy and Commerce Committee, condemned the plan, saying if House Republicans were serious about addressing climate change, they would have supported legislation Democrats have put forward to lower energy prices and slash carbon pollution.
“This House Republican proposal simply recycles old, bad ideas that amount to little more than handouts to oil companies,” Pallone said in a statement. “It is a stunning display of insincerity to admit climate change is a problem but to propose policies that make it worse.”

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Outer space is getting crowded, with both commercial endeavors and secretive military projects. And it’s going to be up to the newest United States military branch, the Space Force, to protect American interests there.
Space launches in the U.S. have been on the rise, and participation by private companies has increased over the last decade. What’s more, satellite imaging in the ongoing war between Ukraine and Russia has underscored the importance of space-based assets, both commercial and military.”We’ve been collaborating with private industry for years now,” said Maj. Gen. Shawn N. Bratton, commander of the U.S. Space Force Space Training and Readiness Command. “And certainly we increase that activity as the presence of commercial industry increases in space.”

SpaceX, Virgin Orbit and United Launch Alliance, which is a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, are launching more and more satellites into space. And in SpaceX’s case, some have increasingly ambitious projects involving reusable rockets, crewed flights and potential colonization.
“That’s what really provides us the edge over any other country in the world,” said U.S. Rep. Salud Carbajal, D-Calif., a member of the Space Force Caucus in Congress. “We really have a great partnership between our Department of Defense and those companies who make their own personal investments in technology for their own economic interests, of course, and we are able to spur that innovation”Watch the video to find out more about the future of the U.S. Space Force

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Three House Democrats are still pushing for relief on the $10,000 limit on the federal deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT.
The lawmakers have asked the U.S. Department of the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig to reverse a 2019 rule blocking a state-level SALT relief workaround.

Rep. Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y., speaks during a news conference announcing the State and Local Taxes (SALT) Caucus outside the U.S. Capitol on April 15, 2021.
Sarah Silbiger | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Three House Democrats are still pushing for relief on the $10,000 limit on the federal deduction for state and local taxes, known as SALT. 
Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J.; Tom Suozzi, D-N.Y.; and Mikie Sherrill, D-N.J., on Friday sent a joint letter to U.S. Department of the Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, pleading to reverse a 2019 rule blocking a state-level SALT relief workaround.

Enacted by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, the SALT cap spurred legislation in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York that allowed residents to bypass the limit. These state-level laws permitted local charitable funds offering property tax credits to homeowners who contributed.
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However, the Treasury and the IRS blocked this strategy in 2019, saying the receipt of a SALT credit in return for charitable donations would constitute a “quid pro quo.”
“As Americans struggle with rising costs and sustained economic turmoil caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, we encourage you to take immediate action to support nonprofit charities,” the lawmakers wrote.
“Thirty-three states offer tax credits that encourage charitable giving to certain causes, and this rule unnecessarily restricts the ability of states to incentivize charitable donations to nonprofits,” they said.

The letter comes after five House Democrats, including Gottheimer, Sherrill and Suozzi, asked the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Financial Services and General Government to deny IRS funds to stop state-level SALT cap workarounds.
Given Democrats’ slim House majority, the SALT limit was a sticking point in Build Back Better negotiations. Although House Democrats in November passed an $80,000 SALT cap through 2030 as part of their spending package, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., halted the plan in the Senate.

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President Joe Biden brushed off Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s reported economic anxieties by pointing to recent investments made by the electric-carmaker’s competitors.
Biden also took a dismissive-sounding swipe at the SpaceX founder: “Lots of luck on his trip to the moon.”
The president’s pithy put-down marked the latest point of friction with Musk, who has repeatedly criticized Biden.

President Joe Biden on Friday brushed off Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s reported “super bad feeling” about the U.S. economy, while praising some of Musk’s competitors for expanding their investments in electric vehicles.
Biden then took a dismissive-sounding swipe at Musk, a frequent critic of his administration. “Lots of luck on his trip to the moon,” Biden said of the SpaceX founder.

The president had been asked about Musk after a speech in Delaware touting the solid jobs report released earlier Friday. The Labor Department found that the U.S. economy added 390,000 jobs in May, a better figure than expected, while the unemployment rate held at the low level of 3.6%.
Musk, meanwhile, told executives in an email Thursday that he has a “super bad feeling” about the economy and will need to cut 10% of Tesla’s jobs, according to Reuters. Tesla shares fell on Friday.
Asked about Musk’s reported feeling, Biden praised Ford and Stellantis.
“Well, let me tell you, while Elon Musk is talking about that, Ford is increasing their investment overwhelmingly,” Biden said, pulling a notecard from his jacket pocket.
“I think Ford is increasing investment in building new electric vehicles, 6,000 new employees, union employees, I might add, in the Midwest,” he said, adding that “the former Chrysler corporation, Stellantis, they are also making similar investments in electric vehicles.”

Biden also noted Intel’s plans to add 20,000 new jobs as part of an investment in Ohio. 
“So, you know, lots of luck on his trip to the moon,” Biden said with a wave of his hands.
Musk didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But within minutes of Biden’s remark, Musk tweeted “Thanks Mr. President!” along with an April 2021 press release from NASA announcing that SpaceX, Musk’s rocket travel company, had been selected to land the next Americans on the moon.
Musk, one of the world’s richest people, is in the midst of a deal to purchase Twitter for $44 billion. He’s recently taken to sharing more politically charged tweets, including one message last month bashing Democrats and vowing to vote Republican.
The president’s put-down marked the latest point of friction with Musk, who has been openly critical of both the White House and Biden himself.
In March, Musk bristled after Biden’s State of the Union address cheered the electric-vehicle efforts being made by Ford and General Motors while failing to mention Tesla.
“Nobody is watching the State of the Union,” Musk said in an email to CNBC.
Two months later, Musk slammed the Biden administration as ineffective and said that “the real president is whoever controls [Biden’s] teleprompter.”
A spokesman for Biden shot back: “Count us as unsurprised that an anti-labor billionaire would look for any opportunity to nip at the heels of the most pro-union and pro-worker President in modern history.”
— CNBC’s Brian Schwartz contributed to this report.

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Payment history often not reported

BNPL companies generally don’t report to the credit-scoring companies when consumers use these loans. That makes it a challenge for a lender to know how many loans a consumer has outstanding. 
“That makes a big difference in terms of how much you should loan,” said Kenneth Lin, CEO of fintech company Credit Karma. “Oftentimes, a credit system is actually blind to how much you owe in the Buy Now Pay Later scenario.”
Consumers with multiple BNPL loans with multiple payment dates may find themselves in a debt spiral. “That’s when people get into deep trouble,” Lin said.

Difficult to build credit history

“When it comes to your credit, it’s all downside and no upside,” said Matt Schulz, senior credit analyst at LendingTree. 
Since BNPL companies generally don’t report positive payment history, “it’s really risky because you’re not able to build up your credit and show banks that you’re credit worthy,” he added. “On the other hand, if you slip up, a lot of times that mistake will get recorded and that can have a negative impact on your credit.” 
About 35% of consumers said they were at least considering using a buy now, pay later loan last month, according to Lending Tree. Another survey found 42% of BNPL users said they’d paid late on one of these loans. 

The impact of late payments varies

Krisanapong Detraphiphat | Moment | Getty Images

Experts say BNPL lenders may handle late payments differently.
For some, you end up getting hit with fees. For others, they just lock you out of the service for the future and they won’t lend to you again, Schulz said. Some companies will report delinquencies to the credit rating companies, while others won’t.
Meanwhile, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has opened an inquiry into how BNPL lenders are using consumer data and reporting that information. “The problem is that when they’re using buy now, pay later for more and more expenses, including groceries and other in store purchases, they can rack up a lot of debt,” CFPB Director Rohit Chopra said in an interview with CNBC.
“The key piece is to make sure that we’re not creating a system that…sends people into a spiral of debt that they ultimately cannot repay.”
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Energy markets have been roiled in recent months, with gas and oil prices surging and fears over security of supply heightened following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Last week Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, said he thought we were “in the middle of the first global energy crisis.”
During a recent CNBC-moderated discussion at the World Economic Forum, a panel of experts and business leaders addressed how best the world could find a way out of the tumultuous situation it faces.  

From the Covid-19 pandemic and supply chain shocks to rising inflation and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, governments and businesses around the world are attempting to tackle and solve major crises — many of them interlinked — on multiple fronts.
Against this challenging backdrop, energy markets have been roiled, with gas and oil prices surging and fears over security of supply — Russia is a major exporter of hydrocarbons — heightened following the war in Ukraine.

All the above is taking place at a time when major economies and big firms are formulating plans to move away from fossil fuels to low and zero-emission alternatives.
Events in Europe over the past few months have thrown the fragility of this planned energy transition into sharp relief. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week Fatih Birol, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, said he thought we were “in the middle of the first global energy crisis.”

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During a separate discussion at Davos moderated by CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick, a panel of experts and business leaders addressed how best the world could find a way out of the tumultuous situation it now faces.  
“We are at a crossroads,” María Mendiluce, CEO of the We Mean Business Coalition, said. “One could think that, because of the energy crisis, it makes sense to invest in fossil fuels, but it’s rather the opposite,” she said.
Gas was now more expensive than solar or wind, Mendiluce argued. The goal of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels — a key part of the Paris Agreement — was, she said, “pretty much dead unless we accelerate the transition.”

Clean energy, Mendiluce said, provided energy security, jobs, a healthy environment and was cost competitive. “So it is now or never … if you’re going to invest, you’d rather invest in renewables than … in an asset that might become stranded pretty soon.”

Patrick Allman-Ward is CEO of Dana Gas, a natural gas firm listed in Abu Dhabi. Appearing alongside María Mendiluce on CNBC’s panel, Allman-Ward, perhaps unsurprisingly given his position, made the case for gas’ continued use in the years ahead.
“As you can imagine, I’m a firm believer in gas as a transition fuel and the combination, particularly of gas together with renewable energy, to solve the intermittency problem,” he said.
“Because yes, we have to go with renewables as fast as we possibly can in order to achieve our net zero objectives. But … wind doesn’t blow all the time, and the sun doesn’t shine all the time. So we have to solve that intermittency problem.”
The idea of using gas as a “transition” fuel that would bridge the gap between a world dominated by fossil fuels to one where renewables are in the majority is not a new one and has been the source of heated debate for a while now.
Critics of the idea include organizations such as the Climate Action Network, which is headquartered in Germany and consists of over 1,500 civil society organizations from more than 130 countries.

In May 2021, CAN laid out its position on the matter. “The role of fossil gas in the transition to 100% renewable energy is limited,” it said, “and does not justify an increase in fossil gas production nor consumption, nor investment in new fossil gas infrastructure.”
Back in Davos, Mendiluce reflected on the arguments put forward for the use of gas. “I get your point, you know, that maybe now the market will demand more gas,” she said.
“But when I speak to companies that are now dependent and have a high risk in gas, they’re looking at ways to shift it. Maybe they can’t do it in the short term, but they know that they’re going to do it in the mid-term.”
Renewables, she went on to state, were a “competitive source of energy,” adding that speed of deployment was now key. “So if I was to invest … I would be very careful not to invest in infrastructure that will become stranded.” More

Walmart will open four new fulfillment centers over the next three years that the company says will let it pack and ship online orders more quickly.
The first one will open this summer in Joliet, Illinois, about 40 miles southwest of Chicago.
The company says the system at the new facility will simplify work for employees.

Walmart is building four high-tech fulfillment centers that will simplify and speed up the picking and packing of online orders. The first one will open this summer in Joliet, Illinois.

Walmart is building warehouses with a high-tech spin in hopes of delivering items to customers more quickly and growing its online business.
The retailer said Friday it plans to build four new fulfillment centers that use automation to pack and ship online orders more efficiently, with the first location opening this summer in Illinois. For customers, the new warehouses will mean next-day or two-day delivery could be more common for items including cereal and T-shirts.

The plans come as Walmart competes with online retail giant Amazon, which has made it easy for customers with Prime memberships to order a wide range of items and have them delivered within a day or so. With more of Walmart’s sales coming from its website in recent years, it already has 31 facilities that prepare online orders. More than 3,500 of its stores, or about 75% of its locations, also fulfill online orders.
But at Walmart’s existing fulfillment centers, employees can walk nine miles or more a day to pluck items off shelves and lug them back to areas for packaging, said Michael Prince, Walmart’s vice president of supply chain innovation and automation.
That won’t be necessary at the new warehouses, where an automated system will retrieve items from an expanded storage space and shuttle it to an area where an employee packs it in a box, which will be custom made to fit the order’s measurements. Walmart tested the concept at a fulfillment center in Pedricktown, New Jersey.
Amazon, Kroger and others have also tapped automation to expand capacity and speed. A decade ago, Amazon acquired Kiva Systems, which created wheeled robots for its warehouses. It has tested robots to reduce strenuous jobs for workers and in April launched a $1 billion fund to invest in companies developing supply chain technologies.
Last year, Kroger began opening giant robot-powered fulfillment centers in the U.S. through a partnership with British online grocer Ocado.

Walmart’s first new fulfilment center will open in Joliet, Illinois, about 40 miles southwest of Chicago, and ship to customers across Illinois, Indiana and Wisconsin. Three more will follow in McCordsville, Indiana; Lancaster, Texas; and Greencastle, Pennsylvania in the next three years, the company said.
Walmart said it will hire 4,000 people to work at the new facilities. The current starting pay at existing warehouses is $16 to $28 per hour and wages at the new ones will be at the higher end of that range, the company said. The retailer declined to share construction costs.
Walmart stores will still play a role in the company’s supply chain and handle online orders with popular items along with chilled and frozen groceries, Prince said. Fulfillment centers will handle orders with a broader assortment of products, including pantry staples and other dry groceries.
Other pieces of Walmart’s supply chain are getting a makeover, too. Dozens of stores are becoming mini automated warehouses for online grocery orders. And last week, Walmart said it will add robotics in coming years to its 42 regional distribution centers, which replenish store shelves.

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Two weeks after announcing that it was pausing hiring, Coinbase said it’s extending the freeze for the “foreseeable future.”
Coinbase has lost more than 70% of its value this year as turmoil in the economy and a plunge in cryptocurrencies led to a decline in users.
“We have decided to pause hiring for as long as this macro environment requires,” the company said.

Brian Armstrong, cofounder and CEO of Coinbase speaks onstage during ‘Tales from the Crypto: What the Currency of the Future Means for You’ at Vanity Fair’s 6th Annual New Establishment Summit at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on October 23, 2019 in Beverly Hills, California.
Matt Winkelmeyer | Getty Images

Two weeks after announcing plans to slow hiring, crypto exchange Coinbase now says the freeze will extend into the “foreseeable future.” The company will also be pulling some accepted job offers.
Coinbase said it was informing prospects of the rescinded offers by email on Thursday. The company also said it was extending its severance policy to those individuals and will help them with job placement and resume review.

“After assessing our business priorities, current headcount, and open roles, we have decided to pause hiring for as long as this macro environment requires,” L.J. Brock, Coinbase’s chief people officer, wrote in a blog post on Thursday. “The extended hiring pause will include backfills, except for roles that are necessary to meet the high standards we set for security and compliance, or to support other mission-critical work.”
Coinbase has lost more than 70% of its value this year as the selloff in cryptocurrencies coupled with economic turmoil has spurred a decline in users and shrinking revenue. The pain is being felt across much of the tech sector, with Uber and Facebook parent Meta taking similar steps, and Robinhood cutting headcount by about 9%.
Prior to the 2022 downturn, Coinbase had been among the highest flyers in the tech industry. The company tripled the size of its staff last year to 3,730 employees. Following its Nasdaq debut in April 2021, Coinbase reported a 12-fold increase in second-quarter sales to $2.28 billion, while profit climbed 4,900% to $1.6 billion.
But the tech companies with the highest growth rates last year have been hit the hardest this year as investors rotate into assets deemed safer in a world of rising interest rates and soaring inflation. With bitcoin down by more than one-third this year and ethereum off by 50%, fewer people are racing to Coinbase to open accounts and make transactions.
Coinbase said last month that revenue in the latest quarter fell 27% from a year earlier, while total trading volume declined from $547 billion in the fourth quarter to $309 billion in the first three months of 2022.

“We always knew crypto would be volatile, but that volatility alongside larger economic factors may test the company, and us personally, in new ways,” Brock wrote in Thursday’s post. “If we’re flexible and resilient, and remain focused on the long term, Coinbase will come out stronger on the other side.” 
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