AEI Panel Discusses Crop Insurance, ‘Add Ons’ and Climate Change

John Deere & space | Milk rebrand? | Election results in Chicago, Wis. | Trump | Trade policy
 

USDA daily sales announcements:

   • 125,000 metric tons corn to unknown destinations during 2022-2023 marketing year
   • 276,000 metric tons soybeans to unknown destinations, 2022-2023 marketing year

A Fed official warns rates will have to rise above 5% and stay there for some time. Details below.

WTO raises forecast for 2023 trade growth, but lists lingering risks. See Trade Policy section.

USTR Katherine Tai today will again try to tout the Biden administration’s new approach to trade policy, a development getting criticized by Republicans and even some Democrats. “For a long time, we just figured the market would take care of everything, and if it’s not on a level playing field, we’ve seen a lot of erosion,” Tai has said. “We’ve got to take new, more active, bolder measures to invest in ourselves.” More in Trade Policy section.

House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) plans to meet today in California with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen, which Beijing has warned would lead to unspecified retaliation. Tsai quietly met with a bipartisan group of senators in New York last week. More in China section.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is visiting Poland today as Kyiv continues to urge Western allies for military and financial support.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol is set to speak in front of a joint session of the U.S. Congress in late April when he visits Washington.

An AEI panel on Tuesday predicted that Congress will protect crop insurance in the next farm bill despite some concerns expressed during a panel discussion Tuesday that the program is costly. Farm Bureau’s economist, however, gave strong support for the program. See Policy section for details.

Milk rebranded as sports drink? That’s what a New York Times article is suggesting. See Food section.

Johnson & Johnson announced an $8.9 billion proposed settlement to cover claims that its talcum powder causes cancer and said it would refile for bankruptcy protection for the LTL Management entity that holds the talc claims. The pharmaceutical maker’s stock rose 3% in after-hours trading.

How do you spend $80 billion if you are at the IRS? The Treasury Department plans to release their long-awaited plan this week detailing how it will spend the funding boost, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Tuesday. More than half of the funding must be used on tax enforcement, but the details will be left up to Treasury.

General Motors Co. surpassed Ford Motor Co.'s electric vehicle sales in the first quarter of 2023. GM sold 20,670 plug-ins while Ford sold 10,866 EVs in the same time period.

Wisconsin elected a left-of-center judge to its state Supreme Court, flipping it to liberal control for the first time in 15 years. The closely fought election focused on abortion rights in the wake of the overturning of Roe v. Wade in the U.S. Supreme Court last year, as well as disputes over gerrymandering of state electoral districts.

Donald Trump is facing 34 felony charges in a case some lawyers say has ample openings for his defense.

After tornadoes ravaged Arkansas over the last week, the IRS extended the tax-filing deadline for portions of the state until July 31. Since late February, the agency has announced extended tax deadlines for other states where residents have been affected by severe storms, including Alabama, California, Georgia, Mississippi and New York.

Equities today: Global stocks \dropped as hawkish messages from New Zealand and Australian central banks signaled a prolonged fight against price pressures and revived concerns about a deeper economic slowdown. The U.S. Dow opened flat but is now up around 60 points. In Asia, Japan -1.7%. Hong Kong -0.7%. China +0.5%. India +1%. In Europe, at midday, London +0.4%. Paris -0.2%. Frankfurt -0.3%.

     U.S. equities yesterday: All three major indices finished with losses. The Dow was down 198.77 points, .059%, at 33,402.38. The Nasdaq declined 63.13 points, 0.52%, at 12,126.33. The S&P 500 fell 23.91 points, 0.48%, at 4,100.60.

Agriculture markets yesterday:

• Corn: May corn futures fell 4 cents to $6.53 3/4 near mid-range and below the 100-day moving average.
• Soy complex: May soybeans fell 4 1/2 cents to $15.17 1/2, a high-range close after trading below support of $15.11 3/4. May meal edged $6.80 lower to $457.40 and May soyoil finished 94-points lower at 55.74 cents.  
• Wheat: May SRW wheat fell 2 cents to $6.91 1/2 after trading as high as $7.10. May HRW wheat dropped 2 3/4 cents to $8.72 1/2. Prices closed nearer the session lows. May HRS wheat fell 2 1/4 to $8.89 1/2.  
• Cotton: May cotton fell 133 points to 81.05 cents, ending the session below the 40-day moving average.  
• Cattle: Nearby April live cattle futures dropped 52.5 cents to $167.60 Tuesday, while the most-active June fell $1.00 cents to $160.225. May feeder futures suffered a late 87.5-cent dive to $202.275.
• Hogs: April lean hog futures led the complex lower, closing $2.30 lower at $72.225, while most active June futures fell $1.85 to $89.575.  
   

Ag markets today: Wheat futures led losses as grain and soy futures extended this week’s declines overnight. As of 7:30 a.m. ET, corn futures were trading 2 to 4 cents lower, soybeans were 8 to 12 cents lower and wheat futures were 12 to 18 cents lower. Front-month crude oil futures were holding near unchanged, while the U.S. dollar index was more than 100 points higher.  

Market quotes of note:

• U.S. equities have recovered from losses in early March. “For a rational investor, we think this makes little sense,” JPMorgan said. “Most of the inflows” into stocks had been driven by a decline in volatility, systematic investors and those covering short positions, it added.
   
• The rally that the S&P 500 has enjoyed since the beginning of the year has been driven by a small group of stocks — the market cap of the remaining 480 or so has basically remained the same. "This is not a broad-based rally where all stocks go up but instead a rally concentrated in a few of the largest stocks by market cap, mainly tech names," Torsten Slok, chief economist at Apollo Global Management, told CNN.
   
• Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said policymakers should move their benchmark rate above 5% this year and hold it at restrictive levels for some time to quell inflation, with the exact level depending on how quickly price pressures ease. To put inflation on a steady path down to 2%, monetary policy needs to move “somewhat further into restrictive territory this year, with the fed funds rate moving above 5% and the real fed funds rate staying in positive territory for some time,” Mester said at an event Tuesday in New York with the Money Marketeers of New York University. The Fed’s next decision on rates is set for May 3.
  
  Key quote: “Precisely how much higher the federal funds rate will need to go from here and for how long policy will need to remain restrictive will depend on how much inflation and inflation expectations are moving down."
   
• Grain markets: Trader/analyst Richard Crow: “The markets across the board saw the exit of traders yesterday.  The market has not been able to gain any momentum from the Grain Stocks report.  On paper, the old crop cash tightness should develop, as seen in the cash basis being paid in areas. Brazil’s soy basis remains weak and may steal some new crop demand.”
   
• The Financial Times looks at Glencore Plc’s bid for Teck Resources Ltd., saying it has “revived the animal spirits” of the sector. Demand for copper is driving M&A activity by firms flush with cash after years of high profits. Link/paywall.
   
• High-tech farming. Says Valerie Christy, impact investor at Astanor Ventures: “A farmer, in theory, can pull up his phone in the morning from bed and see how the tractors have set out and begun working. It’s an example of not just a carbon emissions solution, but many impactful solutions on the farm level.” Link for more.
   

On tap today:

     • ADP releases its national employment report for March (8:15 a.m. ET) UPDATE: Private businesses in the U.S. created 145,000 jobs in March of 2023, below an upwardly revised 261,000 in February and forecasts of 200,000, in a sign the labor market is slowing as consumer demand ebbs and the cost of borrowing goes up. The services sector added 75,000 jobs and the goods-producing industry 70,000 jobs.
     • U.S. international trade in goods and services for February (8:30 a.m. ET) UPDATE: The U.S. trade deficit increased to $70.5 billion in February of 2023, the highest in four months and slightly above forecasts of $69 billion. It reflects an increase in the goods deficit of $2.7 billion to $93 billion and an increase in the services surplus of $0.8 billion to $22.4 billion. Total exports went down 2.7% from January to $251.2 billion, led by a fall in sales of natural gas, nonmonetary gold, passenger cars, pharmaceutical preparations, and civilian aircraft while sales went up for gem diamonds and travel. Meanwhile, imports were down 1.5% to $321.7 billion, due to lower purchases of cell phones, pharmaceutical preparations, cotton apparel and household goods, passenger cars, trucks, buses, and special purpose vehicles. The deficit with China increased $3.2 billion to $25.2 billion as exports decreased $1.4 billion to $13.1 billion and imports increased $1.8 billion to $38.2 billion.
     • S&P Global releases its U.S. services PMI (9:45 a.m. ET) Update: The S&P Global US Services PMI was revised lower to 52.6 in March 2023 from a preliminary estimate of 53.8, and compared with 50.6 in the previous month. The rise in output was driven by a renewed increase in new business, the first expansion since last September. Domestic demand continued to support the increase, as new export orders fell further, albeit at only a fractional pace. Pressure on capacity built following greater new orders, as firms registered a modest accumulation of backlogs of work. Subsequently, companies engaged in another round of job creation. Despite stronger demand conditions, business confidence was below the series average and dipped from February amid inflation concerns. On the price front, input costs rose at the second-slowest pace since October 2020. Nevertheless, efforts to pass through higher costs to clients resulted in a steep and accelerated increase in selling prices.
     • Institute of Supply Management services ISM report (10:00 a.m. ET)

U.S. mortgage applications drop for first time in a month. Mortgage applications in the United States decreased 4.1% in the week ending March 31, 2023, the first period of decline since the week ending Feb. 24, data from the Mortgage Bankers Association’s (MBA) Weekly Mortgage Applications Survey showed. Applications to refinance a home loan dropped 5.4%, and were 59% lower than a year ago, and those to purchase a home loan were down 3.5%, down 35% on a year-on-year basis. The average contract interest rate for 30-year fixed-rate mortgages with conforming loan balances ($726,200 or less) decreased to 6.40% from 6.45%, while that with jumbo loan balances (greater than $726,200) increased to 6.36% from 6.27%t, with the divergence in rates suggesting that banks may be tightening credit in response to recent challenges, preserving balance sheet capacity as deposit balances have declined.

A surprise 50 basis point hike from New Zealand's central bank shocked the Asian market, with kiwi-dollar scaling a two-month peak. The kiwi jumped as much as 1.1% after the New Zealand central bank unexpectedly raised its key rate by 50bps to 5.25% even as the economy heads toward recession. Most economists anticipated a 25-bp move. “Inflation is still too high and persistent, and employment is beyond its maximum sustainable level,” the bank said.

Germany factory orders rise the most since 2021. Factory orders in Germany unexpectedly jumped 4.8% in February, the most since June 2021, following a downwardly revised 0.5% rise in January and way above forecasts of a 0.3% gain. It was the third consecutive month of gains led by large-scale orders for vehicles.

U.S. job openings dropped in February. The number of job openings fell in February, dropping below 10 million for the first time in nearly two years in a sign that employers’ demand for workers eased amid a still strong labor market. There were a seasonally adjusted 9.9 million job openings in February, the Labor Department said Tuesday, down from January’s downwardly revised 10.6 million. February’s openings were below a record 12 million reached last March, according to revised 2022 data, but still well above 7 million openings in February 2020 ahead of the pandemic.

     Job openings in February still far outnumbered the 5.9 million unemployed people seeking work, indicating the labor market remained tight.

Florida sugar grower’s digital plans crystallize. ‘If any business can be considered analog until very recently, it’s farming,’ says CIO at Florida Crystals. Link

Atlanta retained its title as the busiest airport in the world, as more people return to flying all over the globe. There were 93.7 million passengers who passed through Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in 2022, a 24% increase from the prior year, according to figures released Wednesday by Airports Council International World, an industry group. But the number of passengers who passed through Atlanta in 2022 was 15% less than in 2019, according to ACI World.

Market perspectives:

     • Outside markets: The U.S. dollar index was a bit firmer with most foreign rival currencies weaker against the greenback ahead of U.S. market action. The yield on the 10-year U.S. Treasury note was weaker, around 3.32%, with a mixed tone in global government bond yields. Crude oil futures shifted lower ahead of U.S. gov’t inventory data due later this morning. U.S. crude was trading around $80.45 per barrel and Brent around $84.65 per barrel. Gold and silver were mixed, with gold higher around $2,043 per troy ounce and silver lower around $24.97 per troy ounce.         

     • A Reuters poll of foreign exchange strategists showed that the U.S. dollar will weaken against most major currencies this year as the interest rate gap with its peers stops widening.

     • China's yuan just surpassed the U.S. dollar as the most-traded currency in Russia. Bloomberg data (link) illustrates that the yuan topped the greenback in both of the last two months. The trend comes as Moscow and Beijing continue to deepen political and economic ties as the war in Ukraine drags into its second year. The yuan accounted for about 2.7% of global foreign-exchange reserves at the end of 2022, IMF data showed. The dollar accounted for roughly 58%.

       

     • TotalEnergies, a French oil major, signed a $10 billion deal with the government of Iraq to boost oil and gas production in the country. Total will hold a 45% stake in the project; Iraq’s state-owned Basrah Oil Company will take 30%. The deal is a boon for Iraq, which has struggled to lure investors to its energy sector.

     • A feature in the marketplace this week is gold prices pushing above $2,000 an ounce and hitting a more-than-one-year high. A weakening U.S. dollar index and a surge in crude oil prices this week have helped to rally the yellow metal. Gold bulls are now poised to challenge the 2020’s all-time high of $2,075.47 scored in March of 2022.

     • Potash prices fall with new India deal. Canpotex, a Canada-based joint venture of Nutrien Ltd. and Mosaic Co., agreed to a potash contract with Indian Potash Ltd for $422 a metric ton through September. That’s well below last year’s price of $590, the highest since at least 2013. The volume wasn’t disclosed. “The market looks set to remain soft,” said Alexis Maxwell, an analyst at Bloomberg Intelligence.

     • Ag trade: Japan is seeking 60,000 MT of feed wheat and 20,000 MT of feed barley.

     • NWS weather outlook: There is an Enhanced Risk of severe thunderstorms over the Ohio Valley on Wednesday... ...Winter storm lingers over far northern Plains on northwest side of strong surface low... ...Very warm across the East and winter-like cold across the West and the Dakotas.

Items in Pro Farmer's First Thing Today include:

     • Followthrough grain market selling overnight
     • Turkish gov’t discussing grain, fertilizer export issues with U.N.
     • Wholesale beef prices surging
     • Cash hog fundamentals continue to weaken

— A Ukrainian official said that Russia was fortifying southern Ukraine with land mines and trenches to defend against a possible counteroffensive.

— Ukraine grain exports remain well behind year-ago. So far in 2022-23, Ukraine exported 38.5 MMT of grain, down 6.6 MMT (14.6%) from the same period last year. The total included 22.7 MMT of corn, 13.2 MMT of wheat and 2.3 MMT of barley.

 

— Department of Announcements, Part xxx: USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack will travel to Iowa to announce new investments to boost innovative conservation efforts on agricultural lands.

— AEI confab takes on crop insurance, climate change and farm bill. A policy confab Tuesday hosted by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI) acknowledged that crop insurance programs have a lot of bipartisan support in Congress but some on a panel nonetheless urged Congress to act directly to include goals such as climate mitigation in the farm bill rather than resort to crop insurance “add ons” that could negatively impact the soundness of the federally subsidized program. Vincent Smith, director of agricultural studies at AEI, organized the event. Link to panel discussion.

     Some farm-state lawmakers, backed by some farm groups, say crop insurance should be strengthened as part of the new farm bill. Taxpayers pay 62 cents out of each $1 in premium.

     “Major change is unlikely to happen” to the crop insurance program during farm bill deliberations, said Stephanie Mercier of private consultancy Agricultural Perspectives. The program enjoys “very strong support” in Congress and past proposals for reform were short-lived.

     Any add ons, said former USDA chief economist Joe Glauber, could impact the financial health of crop insurance. If cover crops are worthwhile, Glauber said, lawmakers should write legislation dealing with them, rather than introducing additional requirements that would affect the actuarial soundness of the program.

     Economist Barry Goodwin of North Carolina State University, a frequent crop insurance policy critic, also warned against legislative “wedges” in crop insurance.

     Coming to the defense of crop insurance was Roger Cryan, chief economist for the American Farm Bureau Federation. He said crop insurance is “an important risk management tool for farmers,” and said the recent ad hoc disaster bills often are slow to disburse money and use different standards for who is eligible and how loss is measured. “It really should run better,” said Cryan.

     Smith and Goodwin on Tuesday released a report, What Harm Is Done by the Federal Crop Insurance Program Today? Link

— Yellen: IRS plan for $80 billion coming this week. The IRS’s plan for spending its roughly $80 billion in multiyear funds will be released this week, according to Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and IRS Commissioner Danny Werfel. The IRS will outline its priorities for the Inflation Reduction Act funds “in greater detail later this week — with the release of the Strategic Operating Plan,” Yellen said Tuesday during a ceremonial swearing-in ceremony for Werfel at IRS headquarters.

— French President Emmanuel Macron will meet Xi Jinping in Beijing, alongside European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, during a three-day visit starting today. Xi is courting the French leader as he tries to create some distance between Europe and the U.S. in their approaches toward Beijing. After formal meetings in Beijing on Thursday, Macron and Xi will head to the southern city of Guangzhou. The excursion to meet a world leader at a second location outside the capital is rare for Xi, who normally reserves such honors for close friends like Russian President Vladimir Putin. Of note: Macron is bringing with him more than 50 contract-hungry business leaders.

     Upshot: Xi is pulling out all the stops for French President Emmanuel Macron as China’s leader tries to create some distance between Europe and the U.S. in their approaches toward Beijing. The Biden administration has pushed allies to adopt its approach of isolating China by imposing tough trade restrictions on sensitive technologies, such as chipmaking, that could have military uses. Talk of economic decoupling is rife, despite the presence of big American companies like Apple in China.

— In California, Taiwan’s president is scheduled to meet the U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and a bipartisan group of lawmakers for talks that were originally planned for Taipei, but which were reportedly moved to assuage Beijing’s anger. China’s government has threatened “resolute countermeasures” if the meeting goes ahead.

     McCarthy will meet Tsai in his home state at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and Museum in Simi Valley. He’ll be joined by Democratic Caucus Chair Rep. Pete Aguilar, also of California, and top leaders of the House select committee on the Chinese government, Chair Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) and ranking member Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.).

     Tsai already made a stop in New York, where she met with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) and a bipartisan group of senators, including Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-Alaska), Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) and Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.), the WSJ reported.

     Meanwhile, Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin, a potential 2024 GOP presidential contender, intends to meet with the president of Taiwan when he leads a trade mission to Asia later this month. The governor and his delegation will visit the capitals of Taiwan, Japan and South Korea from April 24 to April 29 and meet with Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen and other government officials and business leaders, Youngkin’s office announced in a statement Tuesday.

— China’s new weapon in the tech war: holding back global merger approvals. Chinese regulators recently have slowed down their merger reviews of several proposed acquisitions by U.S. companies, including Intel’s $5.2 billion takeover of Israel-based Tower Semiconductor and chip maker MaxLinear’s $3.8 billion purchase of Silicon Motion Technology of Taiwan, the Wall Street Journal reports (link), citing people close to the process. As preconditions for approving some of the transactions, officials at China’s antitrust regulator have asked companies to make available in China products they sell in other countries — an attempt to counter the U.S.’s increased export controls targeting China.

— Brazil condemned Europe’s attempts to add environmental commitments to an export deal. The EU said last month that the four Mercosur countries — Brazil, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay — must commit to binding measures on deforestation reduction before a long-pending deal can be ratified. The request came in the form of a side letter from the European Commission, the bloc’s executive arm, sent to Mercosur members in early March.

— USTR Tai continues to push trade policy focused on non-tariff barriers, says others starting to agree, but gives no examples. U.S.Trade Representative Katherine Tai today will deliver remarks at American University in Washington, with her message remaining consistent as she tries to tout the Biden administration’s trade policy to engage countries on non-tariff trade barriers versus pursuing traditional trade agreements that address tariffs faced by U.S. goods in foreign markets.

     Tai also will keep stressing the administration is working with its allies to take on unfair competition from China.

     The tools include the Section 301 tariffs deployed by the Trump administration, and Tai said, “For a long time we just figured the market would take care of everything, and if it’s not on a level playing field, we’ve seen a lot of erosion. We’ve got to take new, more active, bolder measures to invest in ourselves.”

     According to excerpts of her remarks, Tai will say the U.S. is seeking to write “a new story on trade, one that makes us more resilient, our economy more sustainable, and are results more inclusive.” The Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) is among the efforts Tai has touted to achieve those goals.

    While Tai has faced strong criticism about a lack of new trade agreements being pursued, she claimed this week that the U.S. is “nearing a consensus on the need to do things differently.”

     Bottom line: The speech comes after Congressional hearings last month where many Republican lawmakers and a few Democrats faulted the administration for not negotiating new free-trade agreements or having a sufficiently ambitious trade agenda. Tai said then that tariff-lowering agreements have in some ways made the American economy vulnerable, and the Biden administration wants to address the problem with a fresh approach.

     Perspective: Tai’s spin on the administration’s trade policy certainly differs from the tone in a New York Times article this week (link) titled, Biden’s Reluctant Approach to Free Trade Draws Backlash.

— WTO raises forecast for 2023 trade growth, but lists lingering risks. Global trade growth is now expected 1.7% in 2023 by the WTO, up from their prior outlook for it to rise 1.0%, but still below the 2.6% pace seen on average for the 12 years since global financial crisis. Trade growth in 2022 was at 2.7%, the WTO said, down from its prior outlook for a 3.5% rise as a disappointing fourth quarter pulled the full-year result down. Link to WTO report. Link to trade statistics.

     The risks to the outlook remain largely the same as they were for 2022, with WTO Director-General Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala saying those included the war in Ukraine, other geopolitical tensions, inflation and the impacts of central banks tightening monetary policy.

     She continued to call on countries to limit export restrictions on food, with WTO data showing that 67 countries have put restrictions on such trade as of April 2023.

— Exxon: Decarbonization business could outgrow oil, in multi-trillion market. Exxon Mobil's Low Carbon business has the potential to generate hundreds of billions of dollars in revenue and outperform the company's traditional oil and gas as soon as a decade from now, CEO Darren Woods said.

— GM is now no. 2 in EVs. General Motors has pulled ahead in the race to be a distant second to Tesla in U.S. electric vehicle sales. In the first quarter of this year, GM sold more than 20,000 EVs, putting it ahead of Hyundai/Kia and Volkswagen, each of which sold over 14,000 EVs. Last year’s no. 2, Ford Motor, sold more than 10,000 in the period. Tesla, however, still rules by a huge margin. The company doesn’t break out sales figures by region, but it reported more than 422,000 overall deliveries for the quarter. Of that, Motor Intelligence estimates Elon Musk’s company sold more than 160,000 EVs in the U.S. during that time frame.

     Meanwhile, about 5,000 white-collar General Motors employees opted for buyouts just a month after the company offered them to stave off layoffs. The buyout program is expected to cost GM roughly $1 billion.

— Do you drive an electric vehicle? If so, you most likely plug in a cable to recharge your car’s battery. But one day, you’ll have the option of breaking free from physical cords thanks to innovative charging technologies. In a conversation (link) with McKinsey’s Florian Nägele and Shivika Sahdev, three corporate leaders in the wireless charging industry talk about charging speeds, safety, costs, barriers, and why conductive automated charging is like an invisible plug that combines the best of both worlds. Check it out and get ready for the future.

— Geothermal has the exploratory risk of oil and gas and the low-return profile of solar and wind, the WSJ’s Heard on the Street reports (link). What is in it for the energy industry? Chevron, which divested its geothermal business in 2017, is dipping its toes back in through pilot projects or early stage exploration in California, Japan and Indonesia. Others exploring geothermal include BP, Shell, Continental Resources, Chesapeake Energy and Murphy Oil.

     While the scale of their investment is small, their interest seems to have helped warm up the geothermal technology space. More geothermal startups launched over the past 18 months or so than in the past decade combined, according to a study published in January by a group of researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas A&M University and others. While few of the emerging technologies have hit the commercialization stage, the industry is at the “cutting edge of some breakthroughs,” said Amanda Kolker, geoscientist and geothermal program manager at National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

— Professor James Bushnell analyzes California’s gasoline car ban in his blog for UC Berkeley’s Energy Institute at Haas (link), arguing that the mileage-range requirement for electric vehicles may effectively kill off any potential niche for lighter models.

— Wind project impact. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said the Ocean Wind I offshore wind project off the New Jersey coast "is likely to adversely affect, but is not likely to jeopardize, the continued existence of any species" of endangered whales, sea turtles and other animals. The report comes amid growing opposition to offshore wind projects, as 31 whales have washed up on the East Coast since Dec. 1, although NOAA has emphasized that there is no evidence that offshore wind production caused the deaths.

— E15 reaches 1 billion gallons. Sales of E15, a 15% blend of ethanol into gasoline, were a record 1.02 billion gallons in 2022, up 26% percent from 2021 due to attractive prices and EPA permission for summertime sales. Link to details via the Renewable Fuels Assn.

— Milk trying to rebrand as a sports drink? Members of Generation Z buy 20% less milk than the national average so the dairy industry "has embarked on a full-frontal marketing assault" that portrays the dairy product as a sports drink and as the beverage of gamers, the New York Times reports (link).

— Japan’s worst-ever bird flu outbreak has decimated its poultry flocks and sent egg prices soaring. Now, with more than 17 million birds killed, there’s a lack of space to bury dead chickens. Link for details via Bloomberg.

— How inflation never seems to affect concession prices at the Masters. Photos went viral of the ultra-cheap menu featured at Augusta National’s food stands. An egg salad sandwich costs $1.50, a beer goes for $5, and buying all 25 items on the menu costs $66 in total.

    
     Jared C. Tilton/Getty Images

— Johnson & Johnson proposes $8.9 billion talc settlement. The move is an attempt to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits alleging its talcum powder caused cancer, to resolve long-running litigation that has weighed on the healthcare products company. The world’s largest maker of health-care products hopes to settle complaints from about 60,000 claimants and fund a trust set up in U.S. bankruptcy court in Trenton, New Jersey, to cover future claims, the company said Tuesday in a securities filing. J&J has already withdrawn its talc-based baby powder and others, including Shower to Shower, from the market.  

— Wisconsin’s highest court shifts to the left as decision on state’s post-Roe abortion ban looms. Wisconsin elected a new liberal judge to its highest court, tilting the bench’s balance of power in a vote that was widely seen as a test of sentiment on abortion rights in the Midwestern swing state. Janet Protasiewicz, a liberal judge from Milwaukee, will give the left a 4-3 advantage on the Midwestern state’s top court, after besting Dan Kelly, a conservative former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice. The candidates and their supporters spent more than $42 million on the election, much of it from out-of-state donors, making it the most expensive state judicial race in U.S. history. Protasiewicz received 56% of the vote, compared with Kelly’s 44%.

— Progressive Democrat and Cook County commissioner Brandon Johnson was elected Chicago mayor in a close-race victory on Tuesday night after defeating moderate Paul Vallas in a runoff election. Johnson, a former teacher and union organizer, and Vallas, who was backed by the city's police union, faced off in the runoff after Lori Lightfoot became Chicago’s first incumbent mayor in 40 years to lose re-election.

— Big GOP gain in North Carolina. Axios Raleigh reports that a key North Carolina lawmaker is expected to switch parties at a Wednesday morning announcement, a move that would give Republicans a veto-proof majority. Link for details.
 

— Former President Donald Trump was charged with 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the first degree over a series of alleged hush money deals, according to an unsealed indictment that was made public Tuesday. The billionaire pleaded not guilty in Manhattan criminal court after being arrested — a moment he called “SURREAL” in a post on his Truth Social platform. Trump then returned to his Mar-A-Lago estate in Florida on Tuesday night, where he delivered a speech in which he decried the criminal allegations against him in Manhattan as a “fake case,” claiming it is politically motivated and has been “brought only to interfere with the upcoming 2024 election.”

     Bottom line: The counts are low-level felonies. Conviction (which many say is unlikely) could mean prison time, but it’s rare for a first-time offender to end up behind bars, legal experts say. Even if convicted, Trump would not automatically be barred from running for president.

— John Deere, the company known for its tractors and agricultural machinery, is expanding into space. Link to why John Deere is going from soil to sky and how it will impact business.

— The LSU–Iowa NCAA tournament final drew an average of 9.9 million viewers on ESPN and ABC, smashing the record for the most-watched women’s college basketball game in history. At its peak, the game was viewed by 12.6 million viewers, ESPN said.

     Perspective: The NBA Finals averaged 9.89 million viewers on ABC in 2021, Sportico notes. And Amazon's NFL broadcasts drew 9.58 million viewers per game on average last season.

     Meanwhile, First lady Jill Biden was met with criticism after suggesting that women's college basketball national champion Louisiana State's invitation to the White House be extended to include Iowa, the team that lost the title game.

— Did you get this invitation?

— Five African grey parrots were removed from their display in a Lincolnshire Wildlife Park because they were swearing at visitors and then laughing with each other. No sound bites and no confirmation they went to confession.

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