COVID 19
Financial help available to small business feeling the Covid 19 pinch
Opening a legislative meeting Saturday morning, Sen. Natasha von Imhof began with a grim monologue. “Alaska is experiencing a perfect storm. A most terrible trifecta. The hat trick from hell. We are being hit on all sides with the stock market crash, oil prices plummeting, and the tourism and fishing season all but idle,” she said. That “hat trick from hell” is presenting Alaska with a Wayne Gretzky-sized budget problem: The state’s vast savings accounts are finally running dry.
Oil
U.S. oil industry asks Trump for regulatory relief during coronavirus outbreak
Reuters, March 20, 2020
The American Petroleum Institute has asked U.S. President Donald Trump for help suspending certain regulatory requirements on the oil and gas industry to ensure steady fuel supplies during the coronavirus outbreak, according to a letter it sent to Trump and seen by Reuters. The oil and gas industry are part of a long list of businesses seeking help to counter the impact of the global pandemic, which has infected more than 250,000 people worldwide, decimated travel, and forced massive disruptions in daily life around the world. The API lobby group said in the letter, dated Friday, it was mainly concerned that coronavirus would leave it with limited numbers of healthy staff to run critical operations.
Gas
US panel approves pipeline, natural gas terminal in Oregon
Andrew Selsky, Associated Press, March 19, 2020
A U.S. regulatory agency on Thursday approved a controversial natural gas pipeline and marine export terminal project in Oregon, but the state’s Democratic governor threatened to go to court to stop the project if it doesn’t obtain every permit required from state and local agencies. The Jordan Cove project, which would create the first LNG export terminal on the West Coast in the lower 48 states, has already been denied one state permit. “Currently, this project does not have a green light from state agencies,” Gov. Kate Brown said. “I have asked the state’s lawyers to consider all appropriate legal action to assure that Oregon permitting processes will be followed.
Mining
Hack
the pandemic with nano copper
Shane Lasley, Metal Tech News, March 21, 2020
Copper3D, a Chile-based tech start-up, is harnessing the power of copper, 3D printing and an open-source design to help ensure there are enough face masks to go around during the COVID-19 pandemic. Working under the hashtag, “hack the pandemic,” this innovation company has designed a N95 mask – a close-fitting respiratory device that filters at least 95% of very small particles – that can be printed with a patented material that has nano-copper additive that works as an antimicrobial agent.
Politics
Washington is about to pick which
companies survive
Michael Grunwald, Politico, March 22, 2020
Two ugly truths about any epic economic crisis are that not all businesses will survive, and government interventions help determine which businesses will survive. As coronavirus crushes the economy, Washington policymakers are scrambling to figure out who to bail out, a responsibility that one veteran of the 2008 financial rescue morbidly but accurately compared to the frantic triage work that doctors are currently doing in overcrowded Italian hospitals. They don’t want to waste precious resources on patients who can’t be saved, or on patients who can recover without their help. They know they can’t prevent all deaths, but they want to prevent the preventable deaths.
‘Incredibly damaging’: US oil lobby
chief opposes proposal to have Texas conspire with OPEC
Josh Siegel, Washington Examiner, March 20, 2020
The head of the largest U.S oil industry lobbying group is pushing back against proposals to resolve the crude oil price crash that would involve American officials negotiating a joint cut in production with OPEC and Russia — or even banning their imports. “We have always supported the market to be an arbiter of the price of oil and gas, and during times of crisis, it is not appropriate to abandon those principles,” Mike Sommers, the CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, told the Washington Examiner.