Biden/Harris Legislative/Policy Discussions - Now with a Republican House starting 2023

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Larry]

. . . Congress advances legislation to ban the EPA from enacting or enforcing any rules whatsoever.  

[China]

Biden administration restores threatened species protections dropped by Trump

 

The Biden administration on Thursday restored rules to protect imperiled species and shield their habitat from destruction after the measures were rolled back under former President Donald Trump.

 

Among the changes, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will reinstate a decades-old regulation that mandates blanket protections for animals and plants newly classified as threatened. That means officials won’t have to craft specific plans to shield each individual species while protections are pending, as has been done recently with North American wolverines in the Rocky Mountains, alligator snapping turtles in the Southeast and spotted owls in California.

 

The restoration of more protective regulations rankled Republicans who said the Endangered Species Act was being wielded too broadly and to the detriment of economic growth. Meanwhile, wildlife advocates were only partially satisfied, saying some potentially harmful changes under Trump were untouched.

 

The blanket protections rule had been dropped in 2019 as part of a suite of changes to the application of the species law under Trump that were encouraged by industry. Those changes came as extinctions accelerate globally due to habitat loss and other pressures.

 

Another rule issued Thursday clarifies that officials must decide if species merit threatened or endangered designations regardless of the potential economic costs of bestowing protections. That’s already government practice, but the 2019 Trump rules caused confusion because they removed an explicit directive to ignore economic impacts, said Fish and Wildlife Service Deputy Assistant Director Gina Shultz.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Biden administration sets first-ever limits on ‘forever chemicals’ in drinking water

 

The Biden administration on Wednesday finalized strict limits on certain so-called “forever chemicals” in drinking water that will require utilities to reduce them to the lowest level they can be reliably measured. Officials say this will reduce exposure for 100 million people and help prevent thousands of illnesses, including cancers.

 

The rule is the first national drinking water limit on toxic PFAS, or perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances, which are widespread and long lasting in the environment.

 

Health advocates praised the Environmental Protection Agency for not backing away from tough limits the agency proposed last year. But water utilities took issue with the rule, saying treatment systems are expensive to install and that customers will end up paying more for water.

 

Water providers are entering a new era with significant additional health standards that the EPA says will make tap water safer for millions of consumers — a Biden administration priority. The agency has also proposed forcing utilities to remove dangerous lead pipes.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Captain Wiggles]

Long overdue. Go get em Brandon. 🤘🤘

[China]

Biden administration finalizes controversial minimum staffing mandate at nursing homes

 

The Biden administration finalized on Monday the first-ever minimum staffing rule at nursing homes, Vice President Kamala Harris announced.

 

The controversial mandate requires that all nursing homes that receive Medicare and Medicaid funding provide a total of at least 3.48 hours of nursing care per resident per day, including defined periods from registered nurses and from nurse aides. That means a facility with 100 residents would need at least two or three registered nurses and at least 10 or 11 nurse aides, as well as two additional nurse staff, who could be registered nurses, licensed professional nurses or nurse aides, per shift, according to a White House fact sheet.

 

Plus, nursing homes must have a registered nurse onsite at all times. The mandate will be phased in, with rural communities having longer timeframes, and temporary exemptions will be available for facilities in areas with workforce shortages that demonstrate a good faith effort to hire.

 

The rule, which was first proposed in September and initially called for at least three hours of daily nursing care per resident, is aimed at addressing nursing homes that are chronically understaffed, which can lead to sub-standard or unsafe care, the White House said.

 

“When facilities are understaffed, residents may go without basic necessities like baths, trips to the bathroom, and meals – and it is less safe when residents have a medical emergency,” the fact sheet said, noting that it will also “ensure that workers aren’t stretched too thin by having inadequate staff on site.”

 

Nursing home operators strongly objected to the minimum staffing proposal in September, saying they already struggle to fill open positions. Such a requirement could force some facilities to close.

 

Meeting the proposed mandate would require nursing homes to hire more than 100,000 additional nurses and nurse aides at an annual cost of $6.8 billion, according to a September analysis released by the American Health Care Association, which represents more than 14,000 nursing homes and other long-term care facilities that provide care to approximately 5 million people annually.

 

Some 94% of nursing homes were not meeting at least one of the proposed staffing requirements, the analysis found.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Cooked Crack]

 

[Simmsy]

20 hours ago, Cooked Crack said:

 

 

They don't know what cool is, they think Trump is cool. They think painting yourself orange and dropping dukes in your slacks is the bees knees.

[China]

Beating cancer used to be bipartisan. What happened?

 

President Joe Biden is scrambling to fund his cancer moonshot and its ambitious goal of cutting the death rate by half — an aim close to his heart that’s no longer a bipartisan priority.

 

Lawmakers backed the initiative during the final days of Barack Obama’s presidency, passing the 21st Century Cures Act, and allotting $1.8 billion to the cause, nearly unanimously. Then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) called it "the most significant legislation passed by this Congress.”

 

But times have changed. The spending package Congress passed in March doesn’t reup Cures moonshot money that dried up at the end of last year. Lawmakers rejected Biden’s request to fund Cures this year and also cut off his moonshot's most direct funding stream.

 

The new budget is tight across the board, reflecting Republicans’ control of the House, deficit concerns and, not least, their desire to deny Biden a win months before the election. Congress’ decision has left Biden scrambling to fill the gap.

 

"Actions have consequences. Arbitrarily calling for spending cuts means the money will come from somewhere," Rep. Diana DeGette (D-Colo.), who with former Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) spearheaded the Cures law in 2016, told POLITICO in an email. "It is a shame we cannot find more funding for cancer research and that this work will be impacted by partisan efforts to slash spending."

 

Republicans see the cuts differently.

 

"When you're running a $1.6 trillion deficit, spending cuts aren't the problem," Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the new chair of the House Appropriations Committee, told POLITICO. "We've been very generous,” he added, referencing the hundreds of millions in funding since the Cures law passed.

 

The moonshot is important, Cole said, but the magnitude of the deficit requires tough choices and compromise on entitlement costs that Democrats aren’t willing to make.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Captain Wiggles]

Quote

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.), the new chair of the House Appropriations Committee, told POLITICO. "We've been very generous,” he added, referencing the hundreds of millions in funding since the Cures law passed.

 

How generous of you indeed mighty overlord. 🤪

 

How much taxpayer money has been given away to multi billion dollar corporations during that time? Simple solution.... raise taxes on billionaires and cut oil and farm subsidies. 

 

 

[PeterMP]

Science and developing new technologies does take time.  Especially for funding for a specific thing, you do get to the point that you are spending on ideas that just aren't likely to work and so are a waste of money.

 

I'm not sure where that line is for cancer research and where we are with respect to it.  But it is certainly possible that we're there.  Spending on everything should be considered with some care and not just be arbitrary amounts of money selected by politicians or people heavily invested (emotionally and financially) in the field relevant to the funding.  And there are people that question are traditional approach(es) to funding cancer related research:

 

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-02609-2

 

(Though we all know that the Republicans saying it is because of the deficit is a joke.  It is to curb economic growth to slow down the economy during a Democratic administration.  As soon as a Republican is President again, they'll have no problem if the deficit explodes with money wasted towards whatever wasteful thing they decide to pursue (almost certainly something related to the military.)

Edited 15 hours ago by PeterMP

[tshile]

1 hour ago, PeterMP said:

Science and developing new technologies does take time.  Especially for funding for a specific thing, you do get to the point that you are spending on ideas that just aren't likely to work and so are a waste of money.

 

I'm not sure where that line is for cancer research and where we are with respect to it.  But it is certainly possible that we're there.  Spending on everything should be considered with some care and not just be arbitrary amounts of money selected by politicians or people heavily invested (emotionally and financially) in the field relevant to the funding.  And there are people that question are traditional approach(es) to funding cancer related research:

one of the things that came out of my mother being diagnosed with breast cancer was learning how much more money is donated to that specific cancer research and how that’s placed it in a significantly better place.

 

especially when it came to the rare form she was diagnosed with. One that needs to be treated totally different than other breast cancers. And if you don’t, it gets you quick. If you do you can live a really long time with it. 
 

it seemed to me, based on that well credentialed cancer specialist at duke (I believe their university discovered the difference ~5ish years ago) that they could really use a lot more money on all the cancers 

 

just my personal exposure to it

[Renegade7]

Is there any truth to US pharmaceutical companies spending more on advertising then R&D?

 

I see conflicting info on this when Googling myself, but again saw countries like UK ban drug advertising directly to consumers (something I wish we did here).

[PeterMP]

10 hours ago, tshile said:

it seemed to me, based on that well credentialed cancer specialist at duke (I believe their university discovered the difference ~5ish years ago) that they could really use a lot more money on all the cancers 

 

There are things related to funding that most practitioners of science don't generally think about in terms of funding and how it affect science actually advancing.

 

This is one of my favorite general/philosophy of science papers (Though, I think he over states he case.): 

 

https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.0020124

 

But two things from it:

 

"Corollary 3: The greater the number and the lesser the selection of tested relationships in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true."

 

More money generally means more tests (making the number of tested relationships greater) which means more false findings that in reality slow science down.  If you increase funding properly (funding larger studies and not more studies), you can avoid that, but the people involved in science funding generally take the attitude of spread the wealth (and money).  And funding just larger studies does have problems with training future scientist and things like that, so itself isn't a panacea when you think about the larger picture of growing science longer term.

 

"Corollary 5: The greater the financial and other interests and prejudices in a scientific field, the less likely the research findings are to be true. Conflicts of interest and prejudice may increase bias, u. Conflicts of interest are very common in biomedical research [26], and typically they are inadequately and sparsely reported [26,27]."

 

Obviously, if you increase funding, you increase the likelihood that people are in it for financial reasons which increases false findings.

 

There has been reporting on a set of published false findings related to cancer.

 

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/24086809/fake-cancer-research-data-scientific-fraud

 

Which is consistent with the idea that there might be issues in terms of the funding approach for cancer and how the science is being done.  If you are just throwing more money into an environment where published false findings are at a certain level (without reforming the system), you don't actually push the field forward.  You're just wasting money and really might actually be slowing down advances in the field by increasing the number of false findings.

 

And I don't actually trust people in the field to recognize whether their field has reached that level or not.

(From the first paper:

"Scientists in a given field may be prejudiced purely because of their belief in a scientific theory or commitment to their own findings."

 

"Of course, investigators working in any field are likely to resist accepting that the whole field in which they have spent their careers is a “null field.”")

 

I'm not saying we are at that level of false findings with cancer.  I don't know.  But I'm also not going to run around and claim the key to finally eliminating cancers as deadly diseases is just money and not time and good and motivated workers and say it is mistake to not just dump more money in without looking at why there have been some false findings, what they can do to help fix the problem, and consider how wide the issue with false findings really is.

 

(Again though none of this is anything that the Republicans really know anything about, care about, or are considering when it comes to their objections of sustaining the funding.)

Edited 3 hours ago by PeterMP

[tshile]

Yes and you see it throughout. Not to make it political but one thing the republicans kind of have right (emphasis on kind of, because ok the surface they have a valid point, but where they go with it from there gets messy and politically charged) is the inherent flaws in science and how it relates to things like climate change - you have the exact potential problem you’re outlining with cancer there. Again - on the surface they have a point worth considering, is all I’m saying. So the notion of paying people to find a problem produces people finding problems that suggest you need to pay them more to continue looking for/at the problems - is something that should always be part of the evaluation. 
 

The art of practicing science is not without potential flaws and that’s probably one of the bigger ones. 

[goskins10]

14 minutes ago, tshile said:

Yes and you see it throughout. Not to make it political but one thing the republicans kind of have right (emphasis on kind of, because ok the surface they have a valid point, but where they go with it from there gets messy and politically charged) is the inherent flaws in science and how it relates to things like climate change - you have the exact potential problem you’re outlining with cancer there. Again - on the surface they have a point worth considering, is all I’m saying. So the notion of paying people to find a problem produces people finding problems that suggest you need to pay them more to continue looking for/at the problems - is something that should always be part of the evaluation. 
 

The art of practicing science is not without potential flaws and that’s probably one of the bigger ones. 

 

 

I call this doing the right thing for the wrong reason. They have a point to be made but thier motivation comes from a self serving place not a sincere intent to help. But still, cannot ignore the valid point to be made. 

 

Agree you can't just throw endless monies at something. On the other hand you hate to miss a solution because you didn't want to spend a few more dollars. 

 

 

Edited 3 hours ago by goskins10